May flowers

This has been an extraordinary spring for wildflowers. People ask me why I think there are so many more wildflowers this year and my best guess is that the cause was the wetter than normal winter.

The experts say to sow wildflower seeds in the fall. The extra moisture helped more seeds to germinate and survive.

The main roadside colorful flowers in May are the orange/red/yellow Gaillardia (also called Indian Blanket), blue Mealy Blue Sage, pink Mexican Primrose, greenish-white Antelope Horn Milkweed and numerous yellow flowers. There are so many yellow flowers! Some of the more prominent yellow flowers blooming now and visible from the roadside include Engelmann’s Daisy, Cosmos, Four Nerve Daisy (the short one that blankets some of our local fields) and Two Leaf Senna.

In addition to more wildflowers there is also greater diversity. This week I found Barbara’s-Buttons (Marshallia caespitosa) along the roadside in a caliche gravel ditch. I have seen Barbara’s-Buttons before, but never near my house. The Ladybird Wildflower Center says: “Barbara’s-buttons is an upright perennial with solitary or several, unbranched stems. Dainty balls of white, fragrant flowers are borne on slender, leafless stalks arising from a rosette of narrow leaves.”

Marshallia is a genus of plants in the sunflower tribe within the daisy family. These native plants are between 8 and 24 inches tall and the ball of white flowers is less than an inch in diameter. I think I will order some seeds from Native American Seed and see if I can get some started in my yard since they are perennials and the deer are not bothering them in the ditch. Getting different wildflowers started in my yard is rewarding, but it is sometimes difficult.

Written by Jackie Mattice, Hays County Master Naturalist