Oklahoma Wildflowers in Bloom

The first wildflowers I noticed along the highway were Indian Paintbrush, which started smalland then grew taller and fuller until they blanketed hills along the way.As the weeks have gone by, other wildflowers have appeared. There are patches or whole fields of one color and then there are the mixed fields. Driving along, you spot the colors sometimes paired with native grasses as you whiz by.This week, I stopped on a beautiful bright breezy day because the flowers are so different up close. First there were large vistas of purples that appeared over the last week. Look how pretty these flowers are up close. Nothing like you would think from the road.Then there were white flowers, some standing tall above the other plants, waving in the wind.Up close, they are little bouquets.Or these other small flowers for a doll size bouquet.The yellows are in bloom, swaying in the background.These are probably something that irritates those with allergies, but they are so pretty.And smaller yellow babies are bright along the ground.More tiny flowers for the doll tea party…Or flowers as bright as the sun that day.A random flower to accent the field.And more fields of orangey red blazed beside the road.And more and more orangeIndian paintbrush…mixed with Indian Blanket, Oklahoma’s state wildflower.As I was getting in my car on one of the gravel or dirt roads where I pulled off to wade in the flowers, a pickup stopped and a scruffy resident smiled a somewhat toothless grin and asked if I was stuck. I laughed and said I had stopped to see the wildflowers. He laughed back, waved and drove away. I can’t imagine that people who live in the middle of all this color don’t love it as much as I do, but maybe some take it for granted.

If you don’t stop to smell the flowers, you miss so much. If I hadn’t stopped, I’d have missed this fellow fan of the flowers. And that would have been my great loss that day.