My Wildflower Watch Begins

When I first started blogging several years ago, many of my posts were nature related. And many of my posts were exclusively about the wildflowers the children and I discovered on our little forty acre homestead and the surrounding areas. At that time, my oldest was very involved in putting together a wildflower notebook for 4H and to enter in the county fair.
I can remember one day loading the kids in the van and we drove from one end of our county to the other just looking for and gathering wildflower cuttings. It took us all day, but we had great fun. We've also learned a lot about how the Native Americans and early pioneers used many of these plants for food and medicinal uses. We learned to look close and identify many by their leaves or how many petals the paticular flower had. The website we use primarily for identification is Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses  as we live in north central Oklahoma. Although, there are other websites that have been helpful as well as books.
And so this is my introduction to a series of posts that I will be doing throughout the wildflower growing season. I promise there will be a few that you've never seen or noticed before as I discovered for myself. One of my favorites and more subtle, as it is a low-growing, trailing plant is, Ratany. It blooms in late spring and early summer. I took this photo of it a couple of years ago.

Actually, I have many favorites and to be quite honest I was a bit surprised in the beginning of this learning experience to learn that there are so many different kinds of wildflowers.
And so my trek to spot the wildflowers begins. As busy as things have gotten around here of late, it's gonna be nice to carve out some time to stop and smell the roses!
Blessings, Julie