Spiderworts are looking lovely this time of year. A nice, early-blooming prairie plant, spiderworts have long bloom times as a plant/species, but very short bloom times as an individual flower. Within the clusters on the top of each plant, a few (or more, as you can see) flowers bloom at a time, each for only a short time, but in succession so that the flowers can be seen for over a month -- usually throughout all of June. They are morning-bloomers, and close up at night, so an evening look can fool you into thinking they aren't blooming anymore, but in the morning they're back!
Foxglove beardtongue -- commonly named because of its resemblance in flower structure to the foxgloves that grow all over England, and because of the littly hairy things on the flower's corolla which look like a hairy tongue sticking out -- is flowering now:
Purple coneflowers are also starting to open. The disc flowers will open from the outside in, and you can see that the very outer row currently has the pollen of open flowers. We're just starting the season for this iconic prairie species!
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