Prairie Wild Flowers

Here are some more various western South Dakota prairie wildflowers taken on a recent trip back to my hometown of Isabel S.D. It has been a damp spring and that usually means the wild flowers flourish. I was too early for cactus and yucca blooms, but was able to find some other fascinating and beautiful flowers while out and about. Click on the photos for a larger file to view and enjoy!

These are Globe Mallows... the contrast of the orange with the green grass and blue skies was striking to me:

White Beardtongue:

Gumbo Lily:

Wild Begonia in with some prickly pear cactus and wild onion (I think):

A couple shots of Blue Beardtongue:

Purple Locoweed and possibly Canada Milkvetch (white flowers) adorn this hillside of an arm of the creek that ran near my mom's childhood home.

Here is a panoramic of the scene above.... the shots are the same, but one is effected to be a "faux" infrared black and white.

West River Wildflowers

Western South Dakota can have long stretches throughout the year of little other color than blue sky and brown prairie land, so it is always fun for me to get out and enjoy the vibrant colors of spring that typically only last a little over a month or two. The green grassland and the blue sky is accented by whites, yellows and purples of spring flowers and lately I've had a lot of fun finding, photographing and then discovering what flower or plant I captured. I hope you enjoy them as well. Click on the photo for a larger file to view and thanks for stopping by.

A couple shots of a Star Lily on a prairie hillside of Custer State Park.

I believe this is a Missouri Milkvetch, (or possibly a purple locoweed, but I wouldn't bet on it.)

These little yellow guys were pretty abundant on rocky outcroppings of hillsides in Wind Cave National Park. I think they are called Stemless Hymenoxys... I'm not sure what the common name is as I couldn't find it on the web.

A few shots of common Spiderwort here. I saw a lot of these in lower, wet areas of draws. When the light was right, they added very deep violet splashes of color to the scene.

I posted a shot of this one in one of my early entries and said I could not find the name of it... well I finally did. It is called a "death camus" It is either the mountain or meadow variety. I saw a lot of these in both parks, but most were smaller than this particular guy. Anyway, the name, I read, is because the bulbs of these plants are more poisonous than strychnine. Crazy!

Wild Iris or "blue flag" in Custer State Park.

Wild Parsley near Stockade Lake in Custer State Park.

Amazing "Shooting Star" flowers high up on the Stockade Lake hiking Trail... I think these must be a high country only flower as I don't remember seeing it anywhere else in South Dakota.