Beardtongue Pink Color Palettes

Earlier this season, I ran into lots of COBAEA PENSTEMON also known as beardtongue. This flower, like many other wildflowers, is so pretty up close but can be taken for granted from a distance. I think I love nature so much because it gets me away from the busyness of life and back into God’s cathedral. The photo above doesn’t show the inside of this flower. But the one below does.

You may not appreciate from the photo why this flower is even called beardtongue. I mean, what kind of name is that anyway? ( I’m smiling over here.) But in better images you can really see in the stamen of the flower a face that looks as if having a beard.  A good image of an up close beard tongue would be perfect inspiration for this Georgia O’Keeffe  Art Lesson.

Last flower in the Color on the Kansas Prairie Series…

Pink/Pale Poppy Mallow and Purple Poppy Mallows. What notebook page does one use for a Poppy Mallow? A Poppy page or a Mallow page?  Mallow page of course. The key is to look at the flower family and when possible the scientific names.Free Mallow Wildflower Notebook Page

When you don’t have the names of the wildflowers your are viewing, use these few things to lead you when identifying:

• color
• # of  petals
• leaf shape

I’ve learned so much about wildflowers myself, and I plan to lead a field trip for my homeschool group in October. Though by then, the study may move from wildflowers to trees. In the meantime look out for Wildflower Notebook Pages Vol 1 & 2 and Trees in fall!

Colors on the Kansas Prairie in this series:

1. Yellow
2. Green
3. Purple
4. White
5. Pink

Resources:

Kansas Wildflowers by Color | Great Palins Nature Center | Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center |Nature Gate

Linked up with other wonderful summer series on iHomeschool Network Summer Hopscotch!

The post Color on the Kansas Prairie: Beardtongue Pink appeared first on Dymphna's Song.

Old Plainsman White

This flower reminds me of a wedding. Sometimes my creative thinking gets away from me a bit. But bear with me. If this flower was something else it would be a wedding. It doesn’t seem like much far away, very ordinary in fact. But up close it’s little flowers are so simple but pretty.

I love the name of the flower above; Snow on the Mountain. And doesn’t it just look like a winter flower? Kind of reminds me of the Poinsettia, so I wonder if it is at all related. It also reminds me a little of the Edelweiss in the Alps of Germany.

And below, I think the color palette that came out of this flower gone to seed is so beautiful. I love it and I definitely feel like the colors inspire a simple and clean feel.

With many more white wildflowers to choose from, I created a sampler here from what I saw and captured on the prairie. One name worth mentioning that is a very common wildflower in Kansas and elsewhere- the Annual Fleabane. They are those little daisy looking flowers that grow all over on roadsides and in fields. (Pictured in upper right corner of collage below.)

Watch for more Colors on the Kansas Prairie in this series:

1. Yellow
2. Green
3. Purple
4. White
5. Pink

Resources:

Kansas Wildflowers by Color | Great Palins Nature Center | Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center |Nature Gate

Linked up with other wonderful summer series on iHomeschool Network Summer Hopscotch!

The post Color on the Kansas Praire: Old Plainsman White appeared first on Dymphna's Song.

Woolly Verbena

Verbena Purple Color on the Kansas Prairie

So what better place to begin decorating than with the right color palette.

Purple color palettes inspired by Kansas wildflowers.

Purple was by far the most amazing color on the Kansas prairie in July. All the pictures in this post were taken just last weekend. This wild flower, Western Ironweed, was everywhere . It attracted some amazing and quite large butterflies. It was well worth the  trip to the prairie just to study the butterflies. And with nature you can’t seem to study one thing without the other because it’s natural to study the wildlife and habitat together.

After a bit of research I found that all the butterflies pictured in this post are Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. Which is hard to believe because they are different colors  but also easy to believe after observing them, since they were same size and had the same behavior, such as feeding off the Western Ironweed. The black butterfly is a female. And the yellow in the first image is a male, because it has little or no blue on the bottom tips of the wings.

Isn’t this image a keeper? I loved how the caterpillar is chomping away and this photo captured that in action! This caterpillar is not an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar. If you know what it is please do comment! If you would like to study wildflowers and butterflies together, you can use the butterfly notebook page below. Or, you can download…

the entire 2o page insect pack for free!!!

Butterfly Notebook Pages

Watch for more Colors on the Kansas Prairie in this series:

1. Yellow
2. Green
3. Purple
4. White
5. Pink

Resources:

Kansas Wildflowers by Color | Great Palins Nature Center | Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center |Nature Gate

Linked up with other wonderful summer series on iHomeschool Network Summer Hopscotch!

The post Color On the Kansas Prairie: Verbena Purple appeared first on Dymphna's Song.