This is just a small sampling. I never have my camera or the lighting doesn't cooperate, but I'll work on it. The names are general. I found a great website called Kansas Wildflowers & Grasses that helped me idenity some of these.

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::  WILDFLOWERS
The Missouri countryside is ablaze with wildflowers. The roadsides are a riot of color. I found a couple websites to help me put names to some of them. Since it is much easier to identify them by their flowers, I have been waiting to see what all the plants coming up in the yard will produce before I pass judgment and pull them out as weeds. There are numerous flowers in the pasture that have been missed by the cows. Ironweed, an especially a hardy weed, dots the pasture. I hadn't been able to identify it until it finally flowered.

Some of the more abundant and easily identifiable flowers are Black-eyed Susan, Queen Anne's Lace, Purple Phlox, Purple Clover, Chicory, Bee-balm, Verbena, and Day Flower. The most interesting plant to me is the milkweed. There are several varieties around. They are so different from plants I am accustomed to in California.

We have a Missouri Gooseberry in the yard and I've also seen some in the pasture. It has edible berries. I tried one and found it rather uninteresting. There are blackberry vines in spots in the pasture. It is about time to go out and get a bucket of them. There are wild roses growing everywhere. Apparently they are not a native and have become a nuisance but they have also developed a disease that is keeping them in check but makes them rather ugly (I didn't get a picture while they were in bloom).

I've had some trouble identifying the trees on the property. I do know there are numerous red and white Oak varieties, Elms, Locusts, some Hickory, Ash and a couple of Willows. There are also several Osage Orange or Hedge Apple. It has dramatic orange wood and a grapefruit-sized inedible fruit that supposedly deters insects.

I am still trying to identify poison ivy. I think I have figured out what it looks like but I'm not going to test it. Surprisingly, the dogs haven't transmitted it to us but we try to keep them out of the deep brush.

Milkweed with Milkweed bugs and Monarch caterpillar.

A wild sunflower. It grew out of our gravel pile in the yard.

Self-heal. Looks like Aguga to me.

The fruit of the Osage Orange , also called Hedge Apple.

Daylillies across the road.