I can't remember a time when I wasn't wild about wildflowers, even the ones that most people would call weeds. I've been blessed with a life rich in travel, both inside and outside of America's borders. There is no state that I have not been to, or enjoyed the wildflowers of some type or another.

One of America's unsung secrets is an abundance of wildflowers and the middle states, or Midwest still includes some of the best and most beautiful. Any trip or vacation to those states, should include taking notice and pleasure in the wildflowers of the Midwest.

Perhaps the easiest way to make the acquaintance of some of the most conspicuous flowers of the United States Midwest, is to group them according to the sub-regions (rather than individual states) in which they usually grow.

Taking the Rocky Mountains as the great backbone of this part of North America, we may distinguish five regions or zones, at different altitudes, each having its own set of hundreds of flowers. In all, there are not less than five thousand different flowering plants in the five zones that are easily recognized. These divisions are:

1. The Plains -- Rather dry, level, and almost treeless, with short grass and a profusion of the low flowers in the moist months of spring. Farther north, this zone may be divided into three prairie steppes, all differing somewhat.
2. The Foothills -- Scattering tress of pine and oak and taller native grasses and shrubs. Here, the flowering plants are larger and the flowering season is longer.
3. The Mountain Zone -- Chiefly covered with forests of pine and spruce, with parks or open spaces occupied by meadows. Here the rainfall is good, the forests are dense, and the flower display is magnificent. Several national parks are mostly within this zone.
4. The Sub-alpine Zone -- Including the higher mountain slopes, where the forest trees become shorter, but the undergrowth remains luxuriant and the flowers are showy and abundant.
5. The Alpine Zone-- Above the forests, often with extensive alpine meadows well carpeted with flowering plants during its short spring and summer. Here all the plants are dwarfed, with short stems and small leaves, but with flowers that retain the full size of those of the lower zones. Many think that the colors are purer and more brilliant than those of the plains and the foot-hills.

In the vicinity of the Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, the plains region is mostly below 4,000 feet in altitude, the foothills extend from 4,000 to 6,000 feet, at which elevation the mountain zone begins.

About 9,500 feet marks the upper limits of the mountain and the lower of the subalpine zone, while the alpine includes the portions of the mountains above 10,500 feet.

Flowers Of The Plains And Foothills Of North America

In these regions, the water supply is rather scanty, so that many plants have small leaves that are economical of the supply, or thick leaves that store it up for time of need. Other plants are low, or appear above the surface for a short time only. Of the thousands, the flowering are a few of the more beautiful or more abundant.

"A tuft of evening primroses

O'er which the mind might hover till it dozes

But that it's ever startled by the leap

Of bud into ripe flowers." -- John Keats

Widely scattered over the plains, and often rather high up on the foothills are several kinds of Evening Primroses (Cenothera). One of the most common is the three feet tall, with alternate leaves and large erect buds.

About sunset these buds quickly open and display broad yellow flowers, each with flour petals that are usually an inch long. A long slender calyx tube supports the corolla a couple of inches above the capsule in which the seeds will be matured.

Some of these splendid flower are sweet-scented and beautifully shared with rose, and are known as the Fragrant Primrose, or Rock Rose (Pachylophus).

Some of the flowers are more than three inches across, while one of the most widely spread varieties is a low plant where the flowers nestle in the center of a large prostrate rosette of slender-toothed leaves.

The closely related White Evening Primrose is also a rather tall plant with pinnatifid leaves and flower buds that droop toward the flowers that are opening on the stem below.

Here the four petals are white, becoming pink as they grow older and remaining open during the day. They are sure to attract attention as the corolla is from two to three inches across.

This is a great wildflower to establish in your own home wildflower garden, should your location permit it. It's very adaptable and once you have established, it asks for little and cares little about poor soil or drought conditions. It's the ideal wildflower for hard-to-grow spots in need of a little brightening.

Another flower with the evening blooming habit has been rather appropriately called the Evening Star Flower (Mentzelia), in spite of its large size. Unlike the night blooming cereus, the flowers of this plant may open two or three times on successive evenings.

It is a stout, loosely branched, herbaceous plant a little over a foot high, with lance-shaped leaves from whose sides project a few large teeth, giving it a thistle-like appearance.

Small hooked bristles scattered over the leaves also give it the common name, Stickleaf.

The large flowers open at sundown with from five to ten white or light yellow petals, having a spread of three inches and disclosing a hundred or more long slender stamens.

Although it can establish little claim to the name, it is sometimes called the Prairie Lily or Gunebo Lily, probably because of the form of the white flowers.

Known to man, since the time of Pliny, where he wrote of its use for treating cataract of the eye, the Prickly Poppy deserves the title of "prickly." It's leaves and seedpods are loaded with a few but lethal prickles. It can cause illness in both man and beast.

Large white flowers, two or three inches across, make the Prickly Poppy (Argemone) conspicuous. In the plant family Papaversaceae, there are around thirty native to both North and South America and even Hawaii.

The five or six petals are as delicate as tissue-paper, and like those of all poppies, endure for a short time only.

The two or three sepals are adorned with projecting horns and fall as the flower opens.

The flowers are borne on a stout branching plant about two feet high, with prickly stem and bluish green leaves, possessing a few rather than strong prickles. When broken, the stem exudes a white, milky juice. While it is potent and can cause bloating water retention, and other troublesome symptoms, it is still used today for medicinal purposes, but should not be taken internally. Some of the uses are:

• Warts
• Cold Sores
• Blemishes
• Painkiller
• Sedative (extract of)
• Purgative (from the seeds)
• Coughs
• Lung ailments

Native Americans (such as the Comanches), also used the seeds as a folk remedy for illnesses of the eye.

The Rocky Mountain Bee Plant (aka Stinkweed) is a plant often found along the roadside, growing from two to four feet high, with round clusters of reddish purple flowers. It is so attractive to insect visitors that it has come to be known as the Rocky Mountain Bee Plant (Cleome).

It's long round pods show that it belongs to the Caper plant family. The flowers have four petals, each a half inch long, and six stamens much longer than the petals. The trifoliate leaves are like those of a narrow leaved clover, and the whole plant has a rather disagreeable odor that has given it the name Stink weed (not to be confused with Skunkweed).

It's not-so-frangrance, however, should not detract from its attractive appearance, nor lessen the number of bees that visit it for its nectar.

Note: This was an important plant to many Native American tribes. The ground-up seeds were used in bread making. Medicinal purposes were:

• Stomach disorder
• Eye infections
• Fevers

The gleaming white flowers of the Sand Lily (aka Prairie Lily) are among the very earliest to appear each spring. They are scattered freely over the plains and foothills of the Midwest, with some reaching into the mountain zones.

Slender green leaves spring from a short rootstock two or three inches below the surface, and as of a loose rosette surround the cluster of six-rayed fragrant white star flowers that are just above the surface of the ground.

The silver of the petals is in a sharp contrast with the six golden stamens that cluster in the center.

The flowers are an inch across, but the slender perianth tube is over two inches long, reaching down into the ground, so that the ovary is more than an inch below the surface.

As the seed ripens, the short stalk on which it is borne elongates and pushes the capsule near the surface, where it remains until thrust out of the ground by the leaves of the following spring.