Words can't describe the strong sense of freedom I feel driving along a strait township road or walking through a knee-high prairie filled with little bluestem, western wheatgrass, and switchgrass. The echos of harriers in the distance as natures wind chimes (bobolinks) sing all around are sounds everybody should experience.
As you Ohioans are searching for some late spring bloomers, I took a look around a native prairie for some early flowers here in ND. Here's a short list of some of the plants I found.
- Hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens)
- Small-leaved pussytoes (Antennaria parvifolia)
- Hunt's bumblebee (Bombus huntii) pollenating a field milk vetch
- Narrow-leaved stoneseed (Lithospermum incisum)
- Prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) getting ready to burst.
