Buildings Reclaimed by the Prairie

An old hotel built of stone, old schools, roadside motel and a rock house abandoned to undergrowth are reclaimed eventually by the prairie that mothered them.

Have you driven past this old hotel in Muskogee? I'll bet you have. It was last used as a hunting supply store and is located on highway 16 which enters Muskogee from the West and is named Okmulgee Street.

This was the front office. It is overgrown with vines, signs are gone and windows are missing. The rear cabins each stood separate and housed one traveling family.

The cabins are constructed of flat native stones as are many park cabins and shelters that were built by the W.P.A. in the dust bowl days of the Great Depression.

The arch above each "cabin" was outlined with bricks, possibly bricks from the Boynton Brick Factory. Now the property is abandoned and the prairie has reasserted itself in every crack and crevice. Shrubs and grass and weeds and trees are breaking up concrete and stone work.

Time and weather have rotted doors and window frames. Animals have found shelter along with hobos and vagabonds. Neighborhood children may have played here and teens lingered in the forsaken roadside rooms.

At night I imagine owls haunt the spaces.

What was this place like in 1950? I imagine an old car parked at one of the cabins, a father carrying a box of food and some luggage to the door. A child is playing in the grassy area out behind the motel. A mother seated in a old wooden chair nursing her baby in the welcome shade of a Osage Orange tree.

God has erased the scene with time and change and covered it with vines and branches, grass and wildflowers. I heard birds singing overhead, cicadas thrumming their afternoon songs, and wind like ghosts moving in the shadowy places making leaves shiver.The prairie wins!

Cone Flowers

 

The Gray-headed Coneflower is a mid-summer field flower with a large seed head and thirteen petals that hang down nearly touching the stem. Only one bloom per stem.

Can you see a little black and yellow butterfly on one bloom? Notice the caterpillar shaped tufts on the grass stems around the flowers.

Notice how after the petals fall the seed head stays intact on the stem until it has dried sufficiently. Birds eat the seeds and the wind scatters the rest away to reseed themselves across the parcel of prairie.

 

The heavy seed heads and the thin stems cause many of the flowers to overturn and hang upside down like dancers in a yellow skirts taking bows at the end of a performance. 

Sights and Scenes of Oklahoma

Trumpet Vine

The woods are full of trumpet vine. It only needs some sunlight and something to climb on to thrive.

 

Here are old vines from last summer growing on a telephone pole. The new growth will completely cover and crush the dry sticks of last year's vine.

Wild Bergamot is from the mint family and called Oswego Tea or Bee Balm.

See that spray of blackberries still red in the background?

It blooms in ditches along roadsides and in fencerows.

Russell's Horse Mint is similar but vary is coloration.

Pink Prairie Posies

Mid-June is a time when there are so many wildflowers blooming on the prairie that it is amazing and impossible to see them all. This summer, I have been attempting to photograph the common flowers and favorites, and also to find and photograph some I haven't seen before.

 The four photos of Showy Prairie Primroses above show them at different stages.

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I notice that there are cycles of predominant colors. 

There was a white cycle, followed by a yellow cycle cycle and of course these overlap and mingle.

The Prairie Gentian or Prairie Sabatia has a tough five-petaled pink flower.

It is one of my favorites to press because it keeps its shape and color well.

Wild roses come in several styles and shades from pale pink to this bright color. 

 

 The Pasture rose is a simple flower with  four petals and a yellow center.

Mimosa and Sensitive Briar are related although sensitive is a ground plant and mimosa

is a flowering tree that grows wild in pastures, woods and fence lines.

Both have a sphere-shaped pink flower with bright yellow tips of pollen that make them resemble miniature fireworks.

 

Sweetpea and vetch are also  pinks of the season.

Coneflowers from white to dark purple are Echinacea.

Pink, Pink, Pink Prairie Posies!