Days 5-6 of World Building: Flora & Fauna

Flora

Native cottonwood trees are common throughout the state, as are various varieties of wildflowers and sunflowers. Big Bluestem grasses are native to the Flint Hills, but one can also find bottlebrush grass in a reasonable quantity. Chicory, with its blue flowers, is common in the Lyon County area. The flowering plant is of Mediterranean origin but has been naturalized. Tassel is an annoying, prickly, weed that is extremely invasive and tends to take over roadside ditches. Western horse-nettle, also known as the potato weed, puts on purple and yellow flowers. A member of the nightshade family, western horse-nettle is known to be toxic to grazing livestock, but I wouldn't recommend any humans trying sampling the flowers either.

Wheat, sorghum, corn, and soybeans are common crops with the expanse of farmland between towns and cities across the state. Organic farming is becoming more of a trend here as it is in other parts of the country, but there's still questions of GMO effects on vegetation that is supposed to be "organic" in the name of making produce resistant to pesticides.

Fauna

Kansas's indigenous mammals include the common cottontail, black-tailed jackrabbit, black-tailed prairie dog, muskrat, opossum, and raccoon; the white-tailed deer is the state's only big-game animal. There are 12 native species of bat, 2 varieties of shrew and mole, and 3 types of pocket gopher. The western meadowlark is the state bird. Kansas has the largest flock of prairie chickens remaining on the North American continent. The US Fish and Wildlife Service named 123 Kansas animal species as threatened or endangered in 2003. Among these are the Indiana and gray bats, bald eagle, whooping crane, Eskimo curlew, and black-footed ferret. (source: http://www.city-data.com/states/Kansas-Flora-and-fauna.html) 

The Flint Hills are known for the dickcissel birds and upland sandpiper, both of which are seasonal birds. Bison (often mistakenly referred to as buffalo) once roamed free, but are now are limited to zoos and ranches. Regal fritilarry butterflies are exclusive to the tallgrass prairie. They may be seen during the summer months of June and July.