Indian Paintbrushes the Texas Bluebonnet of Oklahoma

The paintbrushes fill spring pastures and watery ditches with bright red color. I love these wildflowers of Oklahoma. They seem to grow everywhere and pop up to delight and surprise our hearts after the drab brown of winter.

You’ll find once and again a pale yellow or white among the reds and notice that the reds range from candy apple red to an orangey rose.

There is a stone found too called an Indian paint pot. It’s an oval shaped rock of iron concretion that is hollow. Shake it and it rattles. Break it open and you’ll find a red “sand” which mixed with water and/or oil makes a paint.

It’s pretty picture to me–paint and red-tipped brushes. How I do love to gather handfuls of these beauties on a spring day.

Once I found a whole field so rosy and bright I laid down and watched the puffs of white cloud skirt across the blue dome of the Oklahoma sky.