Kaw Valley Almanac

The bumblebee stashes the pollen in pollen sacks or corbicula, located on its legs, to take back home to feed the young bees and queen.

It’s been raining a lot in much of Kansas — not necessarily what wheat harvest and haying needs, but less than a quarter of the state is currently in some sort of drought, which is a considerable improvement overall.

With the Fourth of July still a week away, area prairies continue to shoot off their floral fireworks, like this sensitive brier. Bees collect the yellow pollen and quail like to eat the seeds.

Many in eastern Kansas are experiencing the annual explosion of hackberry butterflies, which typically perch with their wings folded together. Here they’re sunning themselves by opening their wings.

Many in eastern Kansas are experiencing the annual explosion of hackberry butterflies, which typically perch with their wings folded together. Here they’re sunning themselves by opening their wings.

Butterfly milkweed, shown here in red-orange, can be anywhere from dark red to yellow in its genetic variations. Enjoy these beauties for most of June, and count the butterflies, too!

Echinacea pallida, seen in eastern Kansas, is emerging at various rates: The pink-purple ray flowers begin by shooting straight up in a circle from the edge of the flower disk, then they flatten into a horizontal disk, then curve around and down.

The three-petaled triangular blue spiderwort blooms for a day, but there is another bud below it, ready to step up and open the next day. Butterflies and hummingbirds love this plant.

It’s going to be a perfect week to watch more prairie wildflowers emerge. The darker red markings in the center of these prairie phlox blossoms guide long tongued butterflies to reach the nectar and get coated with pollen in the process.

Groundplum milkvetch is a native perennial prairie legume currently blooming that attract a variety of butterflies and other pollinators. Even though the rest of the plant is toxic, the fruit is edible and tasty.

Verbena is a showy prairie wildflower blooming right now. Flower clusters start blooming around the edges and work their way toward the center as the season progresses.

Native prairies are beginning to show their treasures, including the yellow star-grass and the purple prairie violet. Both have leaves designed to thrive in the sunnier, windier and drier prairie environment.

To survive, the common Eastern Swallowtail caterpillar resembles a bird dropping, then acquires a pungent odor, then a growth that resembles a snake head. As a butterfly, it eats nectar from a wide variety of flowers, including this lilac.

Known variously as dogtooth violet and trout/fawn lily, Erythronium albidum is beginning to bloom in native woodland soils, with the flower/bud pointed toward the ground for protection from the spring showers.

This should be a great week for seeing “spring ephemerals,” the woodland wildflowers that use sunlight to bloom and finish up before the leaves come out on the dominant oaks and hickory trees by the end of April.