State or province

Kansas

Kansas, United States of America: 5 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Landscape and climate

Five ecoregions reach Kansas and every one of them is a temperate grassland, savanna or shrubland. The Western shortgrass prairie holds the dry west, the Central-Southern US mixed grasslands the middle, and the Central Tallgrass prairie the wetter east, with the Flint Hills tallgrass prairie and the Cross-Timbers savanna-woodland completing the roster. Four of the five are in the Nature Imperiled tier. The Flint Hills are the notable exception to the usual story, holding the largest surviving stretch of tallgrass prairie left anywhere, because the rock underneath defeated the plow. Kansas gardens have an unusually clear brief: grassland is the native condition, and rainfall increasing west to east decides which grassland.

Native plants of Kansas

Species in the catalog recorded as native to Kansas, each with its climate-fit grade and planting guidance.

Adam's needle Allegheny blackberry American basswood American elderberry American hazelnut American hophornbeam American persimmon American plum American sycamore Aromatic aster Big bluestem Black cherry Black oak Black walnut Black willow Black-eyed Susan Blackhaw viburnum Bloodroot Blue false indigo Blue grama Blue vervain Boneset Boxelder Bur oak Butterfly weed Canada anemone Canada goldenrod Canada lily Cardinal flower Chinkapin oak Chokecherry Christmas fern Common blue violet Common hackberry Common hops Common ninebark Common sunflower Common yarrow Cutleaf coneflower Eastern cottonwood Eastern prickly pear Eastern red cedar Eastern redbud Flowering dogwood Foxglove beardtongue Golden alexanders Green hawthorn Groundnut Honey locust Indian grass Lanceleaf coreopsis Largeflower tickseed Little bluestem Marginal wood fern Mayapple Maypop (purple passionflower)Narrow-leaved coneflower New England aster New Jersey tea Northern maidenhair fern Northern red oak Northern spicebush Ohio buckeye Pale purple coneflower Pawpaw Pecan Plains coreopsis Possumhaw Post oak Prairie dropseed Prairie ironweed Purple coneflower Red mulberry River birch River oats Sassafras Shagbark hickory Side-oats grama Silver maple Smooth blue aster Soapweed yucca Spotted Joe-Pye weed Stiff goldenrod Sugar maple Sunchoke Swamp milkweed Sweet Joe-Pye weed Switchgrass Trumpet honeysuckle Virginia iris White oak Whorled milkweed Wild bergamot Wild geranium

Country

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United States of America

Ecoregions here

Central Tallgrass prairie Central-Southern US mixed grasslands Cross-Timbers savanna-woodland Flint Hills tallgrass prairie Western shortgrass prairie