Yellow was the dominant color in the form of mustard(s) and buttercup(s) and other stuff, swooshing by at 70 MPH, but there were also pinks and blues and purples and whites and Crimson Clover.
Crimson Clover (Trifolium incarntum), yet another pea (Fabaceae), is popular with highway departments in the southern part of the country and the western part of the Pacific states: it gets seeded along interstates to attract and wow tourists with its dark red flowers as well for fixing nitrogen in the soil and to prevent erosion. It is a non-native annual, brought to us from Italy in 1819.
It was the easiest wildflower to recognize at 70 MPH, and was a sight to behold at first, but eventually we ignored it. Other stuff looked like a phacelia or a coreopsis or Sow's Thistle or a hawkweed or some kind of a vetch, but I couldn't recognize the near-blur of the wildflowers racing by as a specific species, just their genus.
At a rest stop, after I made a beeline for the bathroom, I was able to pin I.D.s to Bluets (Houstonia caerulea), Yellow Wood Sorrel (Oxalis stricta), and Kidney-leaf Buttercups (Ranunculus hispidus). The big surprise came in the form of a small wildflower, a rather teeny Bluet; I think it was Star Violet (H. minima). They might have been Small Bluets (H pusilla), I'm not completely sure which, though I lean toward Star Violet. In any case, this little bitty member of the Bedstraw (Rubiaceae) Family grew in colonies along with the much larger Bluets, and were very much a surprise, not to mention much the opposite of the previous day's interstate-lining Redbud trees, but that's part of the wonder of this trip: the variety of colors and sizes and shapes of wildflowers we were beginning to see, and would certainly see a lot more of in the days to come.
Back on the road, the scenery again racing by at 70 MPH, the rainbow of colors resumed. Soon we would be in Texas, where the fun would really begin, but I had no complaints about a place I had known only for razorbacks and Billy Clinton.
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