Flowering Dogwood
Dogwood’s famous white “petals” are actually bracts framing a compact bouquet of tiny true flowers.
Oklahoma, United States: places and wildlife — page 3
Browse the published Explore collection for Oklahoma, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Shortleaf Pine
Shortleaf pine once shaped vast Ozark landscapes, and restoration is rebuilding the open, fire-influenced woodland beneath its crowns.
Ozark Chinquapin
Once a canopy tree, Ozark chinquapin now often survives as repeated sprouts fighting the introduced chestnut-blight fungus.
Eastern Black Walnut
Black walnut combines valuable dark timber with a green-husked fruit whose hidden shell demands patience from squirrels and people alike.
American Black Bear
America’s most widespread bear is often easier to recognize by tracks, clawed logs, and overturned stones than by a direct sighting.
Pronghorn
Neither deer nor antelope, the pronghorn pairs extraordinary eyesight and speed with horns that shed their outer sheath.
Osprey
Dark eye stripe, kinked long wings, and reversible outer toes identify the fish specialist nesting beside Oregon waters.
Largemouth Bass
A jaw extending behind the eye, deep body, and dark side stripe separate largemouth bass from their smaller-mouthed relatives.
Bluegill
A deep compressed body, dark ear flap, and blue-green cheek identify a widespread sunfish that rewards close looking.
Monarch Butterfly
Orange wings with heavy black veins identify a migrant whose caterpillars can eat only milkweeds and whose journey outlasts any one summer adult.
Common Green Darner
Large size, bright green thorax, and a dark bull’s-eye on the forehead help identify a darner capable of continental movement.
Black Swallowtail
Paired rows of yellow spots and an orange-centered hindwing eye distinguish a butterfly whose striped caterpillar feeds on carrots’ wild relatives.
Say’s Firefly
A dark firefly with pale margins and an angular shield pattern, Say’s firefly turns summer dusk into species-specific communication.
Large-flowered Trillium
Three broad leaves, three white petals, and a flower held above a single whorl mark Ohio’s woodland wildflower.
Common Milkweed
Opposite broad leaves, milky sap, round pink flower clusters, and warty pods identify a plant central to monarch development.
American Holly
Spiny evergreen leaves, pale bark, and red winter fruit identify a native holly once central to Delaware wreath making.
Northern Red Oak
Bristle-tipped leaf lobes, shallow-striped bark, and broad acorns distinguish New Jersey’s state tree from rounded-lobed white oaks.
Tulip Tree
Four-lobed leaves with a notched flat tip and green-orange tulip-like flowers identify one of eastern North America’s tallest hardwoods.
Red Maple
Red buds, flowers, leaf stalks, and paired winged seeds recur across the year on Rhode Island’s adaptable state tree.
Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge
Ancient granite mountains rise from mixed-grass prairie inhabited by bison, elk, prairie dogs, and longhorn cattle.
Chickasaw National Recreation Area
Cold mineral springs, shaded streams, trails, and Lake of the Arbuckles form an unusually water-rich refuge in south-central Oklahoma.
Beavers Bend State Park
Forest trails, cold river water, and Broken Bow Lake make southeastern Oklahoma feel ecologically distinct from the plains.
Robbers Cave State Park
Sandstone cliffs and wooded trails offer climbing, hiking, lakes, and a folklore-heavy hideout landscape.
Black Mesa Preserve & State Park
Oklahoma’s highest point sits in remote shortgrass country where darkness, distance, and weather are central to the trip.
Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge
A remnant salt basin supports migratory birds and the only public digging area for hourglass-selenite crystals.
Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve
A large protected remnant in the Osage Hills demonstrates tallgrass ecology, prescribed fire, and bison grazing at landscape scale.
Turner Falls Park
A 77-foot waterfall, swimming areas, caves, and steep Arbuckle terrain create a popular but highly managed recreation site.
Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center
A major Mississippian-period political and ceremonial center links Oklahoma to a continent-wide network of exchange and ideas.
First Americans Museum
Oklahoma’s 39 tribal nations are presented through distinct histories, survivance, sovereignty, art, language, and contemporary life.
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
Art, material culture, performance, ranch work, and popular myth reveal how “the West” was lived and manufactured.
Philbrook Museum of Art
An oil-era Italianate villa, terraced gardens, and international collections create a museum where architecture is never neutral.
Gilcrease Museum
A nationally important collection of art and archives of the Americas is preparing to welcome visitors inside a completely new Tulsa museum.
Oklahoma History Center
A statewide museum connects Indigenous nations, settlement, Black history, oil, aviation, labor, politics, and popular culture.
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
Oklahoma fossils, biodiversity, archaeology, and Native cultures occupy a university museum built for both research and public learning.
Museum of Osteology
Hundreds of real skeletons make anatomy, locomotion, adaptation, and preparation unusually easy to compare.
Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum
A memorial landscape and evidence-based museum document the 1995 bombing, its victims, rescue, investigation, and civic aftermath.
Greenwood Rising Black Wall Street History Center
Immersive interpretation connects Black Wall Street, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, resistance, rebuilding, and the district’s present.
Washita Battlefield National Historic Site
A winter village attack is interpreted through Cheyenne lives, military policy, contested memory, and the physical Washita River landscape.
Fort Gibson Historic Site
One of Oklahoma’s oldest military posts connects forced removal, Indian Territory, Civil War, and federal expansion.
Oklahoma Route 66 Museum
Decade-by-decade galleries trace how a federal highway carried migration, commerce, family travel, music, and myth.
Chisholm Trail Heritage Center
Immersive galleries explain cattle-drive logistics, labor, ecology, risk, and the trail’s passage through Indian Territory.
E. W. Marland Mansion
A 55-room estate exposes oil wealth, political ambition, craftsmanship, family complexity, and changing fortune.
Myriad Botanical Gardens
Downtown Oklahoma City shifts climate in one block: free lawns, water, shade, and seasonal beds wrap a cylindrical conservatory divided between humid and dry tropical worlds.
Tulsa Botanic Garden
Designed gardens on rolling Osage Hills terrain emphasize seasonal color, family exploration, and horticulture adapted to Oklahoma extremes.
Oklahoma City Zoo
A large zoological park rewards route planning, repeat observation, and attention to how habitats support animal choice.
Oklahoma Aquarium
Freshwater and marine galleries culminate in an immersive bull-shark habitat while connecting back to Oklahoma waters.
Tulsa Zoo
A major zoo in Mohawk Park combines broad animal collections with an increasingly modern habitat plan.
Chickasaw Cultural Center
Chickasaw history, language, dance, foodways, removal, sovereignty, and contemporary life are presented on a tribally operated campus.