During yesterday morning’s prairie hike, I found several new wildflowers and critters. In this post, I’m featuring the Purple Prairie Clover (Petalostemon purpureum). This is the first time I’ve seen this lovely wildflower on this prairie, even though I’ve been monitoring the wildflower display here for 3 years. One of the reasons is that there is only one very small area where I found this plant … only a dozen or so plants were observed. So, I likely just missed the blooms in previous years. Here are a few of my favorite images:
The purple prairie clover grows statewide in Missouri, except for the southeast lowlands. It typically grows in glades, rocky open woods, and rights of way. The flowers are a beautiful rose-magenta to rose-purple color. Buds are covered by silvery hairs. The flowers open in a circular pattern around the “head”, as can be seen in the above images, and flower from the bottom, upward. The purple prairie clover grows to about 2 feet tall. The rich color of the flowers really caught my eye!