This luminous volume offers a rich feast of words and images depicting nature’s unexpected beauty in Kansas. With a keen ecological sense, O. J. Reichman and Steve Mulligan present a breathtaking reminder of the state’s remarkable natural heritage. Reflecting the marvelous alchemy of earth, wind, fire, and water enacted over countless centuries, Reichman’s meditative text and Mulligan’s stunning color photographs reveal a wondrously diverse state. Ranging across both widely known and unfamiliar forests and prairies, rivers and lakes, geological formations and botanical splendors, they celebrate this diversity.

Featured in these pages are the sunlit bluffs of the Arikaree River, the Red Hills beneath a winter sky, the meandering Chikaskia River, Castle Rock, Pillsbury Crossing, Keyhole Arch in Monument Rocks National Landmark, Breidenthal Reserve’s oak and hickory forests, sweeping waves of Big Bluestem and spring fires on Konza Prairie, Cimarron National Grasslands, the Mill Creek waterfall, Shermerhorn Cave, the wetlands of Cheyenne Bottoms, and a vast array of blooming phlox, columbine, larkspur, butterfly milkweed, dogwood, and wild rose.

More than any previous work, Living Landscapes of Kansas captures the essence of a state alive with natural beauty.