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. "Reichman and Mulligan have provided written and visual proof that the natural beauty of Kansas is more complicated and impressive than fields of sunflowers and waving wheat."— Great Plains Quarterly "Steve Mulligan has a gift for capturing the very best of Kansas on film. His extraordinary landscape photos are the next best thing to being there."— Andrea Glenn , editor of Kansas! Magazine "This book conveys a true sense of the beauty and wonder of the natural landscape of Kansas."— Craig C. Freeman , coauthor of Roadside Wildflowers of the Southern Great Plains "A fresh and graceful look at the Kansas landscape. O. J. Reichman effectively weaves together geology, botany, biology, and meteorology."— Rex Buchanan , coauthor of Roadside Kansas Reflecting the marvelous alchemy of earth, wind, fire, and water enacted over countless centuries, O. J. Reichman's meditative text and Steve 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 capture the essence of a state alive with natural beauty. O. J. Reichman, author of Konza Prairie: A Tallgrass Natural History , is assistant director for research at the National Biological Service in Washington, D.C. He is the coauthor of “Museum Backroom,” a PBS documentary for which he won an Emmy. Steve Mulligan of Moab, Utah, is one of America’s leading photographers of the Great Plains. His 1995 photographic calendar, “Wild & Scenic Kansas,” was sponsored by the Kansas Chapter of The Nature Conservancy.