RAPID CITY - It's a great year for wildflowers.to flower hunt, especially out on the prairie where so many flowers live close to the ground and can get lost in the lush vegetation.

It's not bad for wildflower watchers, either.

Washington, D.C., resident Jan Peacock counts herself happily in that unofficial club. And she's finding the watching to be especially productive during a summer of volunteer work at the visitor center in Custer State Park.

The flower hunts begin, quite literally when Peacock steps out the door of her unpaid job.

"I'm here from Washington, D.C., and these are not the flowers that I normally see," she said Friday. "In Washington, we have to go someplace to see them. Here, they're all around."

Especially this year. The April flowers that lingered through June brought with them an expected explosion of grass and shrubs and other vegetation, including one of the most diverse and plentiful wildflower crops that western South Dakota wildflower fanciers have seen in years.

"It's been a good year for flower gazing, and it's not over yet," Marie Curtain, a science technician at Wind Cave National Park, said. "There's still some color out there."

You can see plenty of that color from the windows of a vehicle. But that's not the way

"If you really want to see flowers on the prairie you need to get out of your vehicle and walk around," Curtain said. "Just looking from your vehicle isn't enough."

It's worth the trouble of taking a hike, long or short. And there's plenty of land to explore, including the meadows and hillsides of the Black Hills National Forest, as well as additional public land in Wind Cave National Park, Custer State Park and Badlands National Park.

The Buffalo Gap National Grasslands also are worth exploration. But each hot day will make the show a little dimmer, especially out away from the Black Hills.

"It might be getting a little late," U.S. Forest range management specialist Terri Harris of Wall said. "The cool season species and even some of the warm season species are past their time. We're on the tail end of it."

But even the tail end can be good when purple coneflowers and other prairie regulars start to show their stuff. And the diverse bloom lingers in certain spots where moisture remains.

Peacock said the meadows and hillsides are prime wildflower turf, but even rocky outcroppings can be worth some study.

"It seems like many flowers grow out of those rocky ledges where you'd never think to look," she said.

Although the big burst of blooming wildflowers has already passed, native grasses are showing off this summer in ways that haven't been seen for years. And the wildflower show will continue in less dramatic ways through the summer.

Return visits to the same areas will give visitors a more complete view and understanding of the landscape, Curtain said.

"Re-visit the prairie throughout the season," she said. "There will be different flowers each time."