No pictures, just a verbal description. Our hill landscape is mostly clay soil, some poor gray clay, like our land, some with more organic matter, a rich fertile soil. I believe it's about ph neutral. Slide prone. There are outcroppings of volcanic rock (basalt?) in a base stone of shale. The valleys rejoice in a richer alluvial soil, and I even know an area of sandy loam, located surprisingly up on top of some hills. The landscape, aside from fields cultivated in grains and alfalfa, is grass, woods, and various areas of uncultivated ground: river bottoms, neglected fields turning to brush. The number of native and indigenous (is this the right word? I mean growing on its own) woody species seems to me quite limited. In our woods, deciduous oaks in the drier areas, mainly Quercus pubescen with some Turkey oaks (Q. cerris), flowering ash, field maple, hawthorn, blackthorn, redtwig dogwood, honeysuckle (L. caprifolium), brambles, ligustrum, dog roses, elderberry, occasional stands of elm (U. minor) and black hornbeam (I suppose it's called: Ostrya carpinifolia), Viburnum lantana, wild cherry, Coronilla emerus, hops. Black and white poplars and various willows in the river bottoms and other wet places. Overabundant ivy and wild clematis. Valued and not overly common R. gallica and Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas); laburnum, smokebush and checker tree (Sorbus torminalis) that grow in the area but not on our property and that I want to introduce. The sole native needle woody plant of our area is the extremely prickly Juniperus comunis. You see black locust, introduced some centuries ago from North America, along roads and in degraded areas everywhere. Bay laurel shows invasive tendencies. All woods get cut over regularly.

The meadows are a diversity of grasses, lots of chicory, hawkweeds, dandelions, sedges? (something grasslike that's not a grass), bedstraws (Galium), leguminous herbaceous plants, veronica, lots of plants I don't know the names of. I don't know the herbaceous plants well. Sedums, Globularia, soapworts, and so on. There's a good population of orchids, many of them growing in barren areas, where the soil was too poor for them to get cultivated into extinction, I suppose. The woods have a rich population of woodland spring flowers: various violets, including V. odorata, Erythronium dens-canis, Hepatica nobilis, primroses (P. vulgaris), anemones, snowdrops, snowflakes (uncommon), Scilla bifolia, Poet's narcissus. Some of these are common in our woods, others I've seen growing wild. The meadows have wild gladiolus, star of Bethlehem, muscari.

I forgot those obnoxious pests nettles, artemisia, thistles, parietaria, and various other plug uglies that grow in disturbed or neglected ground.

Do you mean like native wildflowers? Here is the list, with pics, of the state of Kansas wildflowers. Other than that, Kansas is known for its native prairie grasses and for being flatter than flat (western third of Kansas--they have short native grasses, tall prairie grasses in much of middle and eastern Kansas), and if I remember correctly the western half of the state is somewhat more alkaline and the eastern end a bit more acid.

My favorite Kansas wildflower is the Kansas gayfeather (Liatris pycnostachya)-- sprightly purple spikes. Often grown in perennial gardens, as is the ubiquitous brown-eyed Susan.

Here is some info. on our prairie grasses, in particular, Little Bluestem grass:

"Why a State Grass?

The symbols that represent Kansas, such as the State Flower, the Annual Sunflower, and the State Tree, the Cottonwood, teach our children about the place where they live. Kansas is a grassland ecosystem. . . .

Why Little Bluestem?

Several native grasses are considered dominant in pastures and prairies across the state, but the one species that is found in every county of Kansas is Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). Little Bluestem is a native perennial with a dense root system reaching five to eight feet into the soil. It is drought resistant and grows from two to five feet tall in deep, shallow or rocky soils. It is important for wildlife habitat. It was once the most abundant grass in the Great Plains and is still of major importance in the tall, mixed and shortgrass prairies where it can produce one to two tons of biomass per acre. This grass is nutritious and palatable for cattle and bison, especially after a spring burn, when the new growth is highly attractive to grazers."

I think I remember being told that the State flowering tree is the Redbud. At least they grow wild in my yard. Forms a lovely lavender/pink/mauve haze every spring up and down my back alley where it also grows mostly wild. (By the way, no trees in western Kansas. This pic is more like my southeast corner of the state.)

Eastern Redbud tree (image from google search)

Kate

Summer.....

Winter....

Love your pics, lavender lass, but what state is that? Could be Kansas, from appearances. : )

Kate

Northeastern North American second growth jungle.

This is what is across the street from my house. No snow right now. This picture is a couple of years old.

There is still a lot of local agriculture. Many apple orchards and local produce for NYC.

Dublin- Not Kansas. Eastern Washington, very close to the Idaho border. We live about five miles north of the Great Palouse...but we still have trees :)

Here it is either grassland or oak savanna, depending on slope, aspect, water availability. Livermore is in a flat valley of semi-arid grassland (what's left of it -- quickly being paved over) but surrounded by hills (which are mostly being preserved). The grassland biomass is generally > 90% exotic annual grass species from Europe (varies from year to year, though, depending on rainfall patterns), with some exotic forbs, native forbs, native perennial grass and the relatively rare (as in, not many different kinds) native annual grass species making up the rest. So, the grasses you see in the photos below are non-native but most of everything else (trees, shrubs, etc.) is native.

Behind the college where I teach, March of this year. The pink-purple is Castilleja exserta, purple owl's clover; largest mass bloom of that in at least 50 years, due to an unusual downpour in the previous December. Bare spots in second photo, surrounded by exotic mustard plants, are ground squirrel burrows. This is north Livermore, deep clay soils.

Just over the hill from my house in south Livermore, in the San Antonio Reservoir/Welch Creek watershed, June of this year (gravelly clay loams, some alluvial):

By the way, Nik, looking at the east Attica flora etc. you linked, hairy canary clover (Dorycnium hirsutum) does extremely well here and I just planted a Calamintha nepeta (got it from the little U.C. Berkeley Botanical Garden nursery - they offer rarities from their collection). Your terrain looks familiar and a lot like here... I didn't have a photo at hand, but we also have large areas of native scrub vegetation, just a few miles south-east of my garden (and in my garden, too...but not exactly natural in that case -- was "constructed").

The landscape around my village is too varied to describe in detail but it is much like the rest of the country, forests and lakes. 63% of Sweden is forest and my garden was apparently old forest before the land was cleared for farming and habitation. A narrow strip of native forest was left when my house was built in 1953, with the same mix of conifers and deciduous trees and shrubs as everywhere around here. Pines (Pinus sylvestris), junipers, birches, rowans, acers, oaks, hazels, Rosa dumalis, wild raspberries, and Amelanchier confusa but not the spruces or alders that are common in lower and wetter areas. I made a list of the native flowering plants when I moved here. There are not many because the wooded area is stony with rocky outcrops with acid soil in between. (The big part of the garden is heavy clay, probably an old river bed.) I listed windflowers (Anemone nemorosa), hepaticas, Campanula rotundifolia, lily-of-the valley (but they seem to be disappearing), Lady's bedstraw, woodbine, Solomon's Seal, Primula veris (a pretty weed!), Viola arvensis, Viola riviniana, Viola odorata, Geranium silvaticum, Filipendula vulgaris, Geum rivale, ox-eye daisies, wild strawberries and bilberries (Vaccinum myrtillus). The rose in the photo is Rosa pendulina, a non-native I planted but the crane's bills and the water avens (barely visible) are native.

Like Catspa, my house is located in the Central Oak Woodland region of California. Our hills get slightly more rainfall than the ones she pictured, so imagine those trees growing just a bit more densely. In areas that have not been completely corrupted by invasive exotics from other Mediterranean climates, I find Coast live oak, California bay, California buckeye, Cherry leaf plum, Toyon, various Manzanitas and Gooseberries, and Poison oak. I loathe poison oak. Very few of the wild grasses we see are native.

Just a half an hour's drive in the Coastal Range mountains the native vegetation is completely different, classified as Mixed Evergreen Forest. There you find Bigleaf Maple, Coast Redwood, Douglas Fir, California Bay, several oaks including Coast live oak, California hazelnut, California rose-bay (a rhododendron) and Madrone. Oh yes, poison oak grows there, too. Of course. By the way, madrones are gorgeous plants, as are manzanitas.

You can see from the plant list that the mountains get far more rain than we do in the lower foothills and valley. We average 15 inches of rainfall a year, they get between 20 and 60.

Here is where coastal sage scrub meets oak woodland. Quercus agrifolia, Quercus berberidifolia, Heteromeles arbutifolia, Rhus integrifolia, Malosma laurina, Salvia apiana, Eriogonum fasciculatum, Salvia clevelandii, Opuntia littoralis, Yucca whipplei, Artemisia californica, Sambucus mexicana.

Badly degraded by non-native invaders Eucalyptus globulus, Nicotiana glauca, Ricinus communis, Washingtonia, Pennesetum setaceum, Onopordum acanthium, and Homo sapiens.

Millennia ago, erupting volcanoes forced the seabed up, and pushed it into jagged hills -- the rows of hills continuing down to pop up from the seabed of California's offshore sea as the Channel Islands.

The resulting new land is rocky and sandy, with leftover minerals from the ancient sea. Much of the hillsides have no real organic matter. But over the centuries, some things have "learned" to grow.

Cactus. Miles and miles and miles of prickly pear cactus. We used to have sage and creosote bush, but where those have burned away, in years of no rain, the empty spaces are filled in with . . . cactus. And bare ground.

We used to have coastal oaks, but those have retreated from this area. We have some remaining old sycamores. Areas where there is water have filled in with feral Arundo donax:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundo_donax.
Areas where there is little or no water fill in with feral tree tobacco -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotiana_glauca -- and Castor Bean -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricinus -- Ricinus communis -- and other oddities.

Years ago, wet areas used to host R. californica . . . but I don't think there's much of that left.

There are several stands of Rosa californica two miles from my house, You see them in the wetter areas, often near a seasonal stream. It grows mixed with the poison oak, alas.

Arundo donax is native to where I live, occupying low lying areas with a very shallow water table. Castor bean (the green not the red leaved variety) is native to Greece but I have not seen it growing wild in this area.

I'm in California Zone 7a

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No poison oak in this part of California! Yippee!

Anne, your native vegetation is absolutely beautiful! Are you somewhere up in the Sierra Nevada mountains? And no poison oak. Bliss.