Lucky clovers

Trifolium dasyphyllum, June 16, 2020

Common & scientific name
Alpine clover, Trifolium dasyphyllum

Family
Pea, Fabiaceae

Location
Summit, 12,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

One of our three throughly delightful alpine clovers, this early bloomer can be distinguished from its similarly shaped but later blooming cousin, T. parryi, by its lighter overall color (often white or light pink) and darker, contrasting (here magenta) keel, where T. parryi is a darker magenta or purple overall, without the boldly contrasting keel.

Good news: I smell a skunk!

Polemonium viscosum, June 30, 2020

Common & scientific name
Sky pilot, Polemonium viscosum

Family
Phlox, Polemoniaceae

Location
Green Mountain, 12,500’ & Geissler 3, 12,600

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

If you’ve ever been scrambling along a rocky alpine ridge and swore you smelled a skunk, you were (sort of) correct!  Polemonium viscosum, a common but striking tundra flower, sometimes goes by the name “Skunkweed,” owing to the strong odor it sometimes puts out.  Like its faunal namesake, however, it is a beauty to behold, no matter the smell.  So hold your nose and thank your lucky stars for being where you are: in the magnificent alpine among the magnificent Sky pilot!

P. viscosum, July 30, 2020

Bedding down for the summer

Paronychia pulvinata, June 11, 2020

P. pulvinata, June 11, 2020

Common & scientific name
Alpine nailwort, Paronychia pulvinata

Family
Pink, Caryophyllaceae

Location
Summit, 12,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

Inconspicuous yellow-green flowers embedded in tight, sometimes large mats, often growing directly on the crumbling granite of our high peaks.  This low-lying, wonderfully subtle flower knows how to make the best of things amidst the hard, desiccating winds of the high alpine!

If this were your last summer in the mountains . . .

Hymenoxis grandiflora, June 23, 2020

Common & scientific name
Old-Man-of-the-Mountain, Hymenoxis grandiflora

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Summit, 12,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This common alpine resident stands out with its comparatively huge flower head and its wooly-hairy stem and leaves.  According to Dr. David Inouye, who for 4+ decades has studied alpine plants and their pollinators at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, just over the Elk Range in Gothic, H. grandiflora grows for 12-15 years without flowering, flowers once, and then dies.  So treat every Old-Man-of-the-Mountain you see with reverence, and imagine (if you can) your own last summer . . . .

H. grandiflora, June 30, 2020

Never to be forgotten

Eritrichum aretioides, June 8, 2020

Common & scientific name
Alpine forget-me-nots, Eritrichum aretioides

Family
Borage, Boraginaceae

Location
Summit, 12,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This ground-hugging alpine jewel is many people’s favorite wildflower, period.  Its Kodachrome-blue petals and golden eyes are unique in our region, and its favorite habitat—rocky, windswept, highly inhospitable mountain tops and ridges—makes its beauty and sheer existence all the more jaw-dropping.  Because this flower blooms early and won’t stick around too long, it is worth dropping everything to get up high and bow down to this wonder of creation.

Good enough wins

Heterotheca villosa, June 8, 2020

H. pumila, July 28, 2020

Common & scientific name
Hairy golden aster, Heterotheca villosa

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Above winter gate, 8,550’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

While all guide books describe this plant as “highly variable” (in size, leaf shape, hairiness, etc.), it is easily identifiable by its strongly pungent smell, location (dry, exposed places, often roadside), and its numerous yellow flowers atop a mound of grayish-green leaves.  Its alpine cousin, H. pumila, looks similar (and they may interbreed), but it generally has larger yellow flowers and, well, grows higher. I tried for years to distinguish these two species, but have now decided not to make the perfect the enemy of the good: if it’s up high, it’s H. pumila, if it’s not, it’s H. villosa.

Smokin' soft

Geum triflorum, June 26, 2020

Common & scientific name
Prairie smoke, Geum triflorum

Family
Rose, Rosaceae

Location
North Fork Lake Creek TH, 10,800’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This sublimely soft, rosy, nodding flower is always a delight to find, whether it’s a single plant or whether it fills a meadow.  Its seed heads are reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss hair style, and will be featured here later this summer when they go to seed!  Interestingly, it is the plant’s rosy bracts and sepals, not its small, pale petals just protruding at the tip of the flower, that give Prairie smoke its elegant color and shape.

Scarious stuff

Cerastium strictum, June 8, 2020

Common & scientific name
Mouse-ear chickweed, Cerastium strictum

Family
Pink, Caryophyllaceae

Location
Mountain Boy basin, 11,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This cheery chickweed is abundant in meadows and forest openings from the montane to the alpine.  It can be distinguished from its close cousin, C. beeringianum, by its scarious-margined bracts; that is, the green, reduced leaves surrounding the bottom of C. strictum’s flower have clear, thin, plastic-looking margins.

Yellow to the west, lavender to the east

Erysimum capitatum, June 8, 2020

Erysimum capitatum, June 11, 2020

Common & scientific name
Western wallflower, Erysimum capitatum

Family
Mustard, Brassicaceae

Location
Mountain Boy basin, 11,100’ & summit, 12,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This big, cheery mustard is as at home on the summit of Independence Pass as it is in the deserts of Utah.  It is most commonly yellow, but on the east side of the Pass, especially up near treeline, it is a striking lavender-magenta—photo coming soon!

I'm early this year!

Castilleja linarifolia, June 8, 2020

Castilleja linarifolia, yellow version, June 16, 2020

Common & scientific name
Wyoming paintbrush, Castilleja linarifolia

Family
Broomrape, Orobanchaceae

Location
Above winter gate, 8,600’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

One of five species of paintbrushes found on the Pass, Wyoming paintbrush (so named because it is the state flower of Wyoming) is found at the lowest elevations on the Pass, and usually later in the summer than early June.  It is the tallest and skinniest in appearance, due to its mostly linear leaves, and does not have the soft, fuzzy appearance of its red cousin, Castilleja miniata. It occasionally takes on varying shades of yellow and orange, as seen in the photos below, likely through mutation.

C. linarifolia, orange version, June 16, 2020

Shiny, beautiful things

Ranunculus macounii, June 8, 2020

Common & scientific name
Macoun’s buttercup, Ranunculus macounii

Family
Buttercup, Ranunculaceae

Location
Twin Lakes, 9,700’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

Many of us can recall holding a buttercup up to a friend’s chin and seeing its yellow reflection.  This glossy-reflective property on the outside (but not innermost part) of the buttercup’s petals is water repellent, causing dew or rain to drain off and leave pollen floating just at the level of the stigmas and thus aiding pollination.  Most beautiful adaptations are, indeed, useful, as well!

Rocky Mountain regal

Penstemon strictus, June 16, 2020

Common & scientific name
Rocky Mountain penstemon, Penstemon strictus

Family
Plantain, Plantaginaceae

Location
Above the winter gate, 8,600’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

In her fabulous local guide, Wild at Heart, Janis Huggins notes that “with more than 250 species . . . [penstemon] is the largest genus of flowering plants native to North America and one that is still actively evolving—closely related species in the same vicinity readily hybridize.”  This being said, it is impossible to mistake our regal Rocky Mountain penstemon for any other kind.  It grows only near the bottom of the Pass in sunny, dry areas, and is by far the tallest and lightest blue-lavender of the Pass’s half-dozen species.

I am not a sham

Pseudocymopterus montanus, June 23, 2020

Common & scientific name
Mountain parsley, Pseudocymopterus montanus

Family
Parsley, Apiaceae

Location
Waterfall, 10,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This common parsley, seen at every elevation on the Pass, gives scientists fits because of its morphological variability and differences of opinion as to how it should be classified, both genus and species-wise.  But it’s one of our easier plants to identify: it has carrot-like leaves and it’s yellow, unlike any other parsleys on the Pass, which are all white (EXCEPT Alpine parsley, Oreoxis alpina, which is mat-forming and much tinier in all aspects than Mountain parsley).

Peas mind where you're stepping

Trifolium nanum, June 8, 2020

Common & scientific name
Dwarf clover, Trifolium nanum

Family
Pea, Fabaceae

Location
Summit, 12,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This exclusively alpine pea hugs the ground, coming in at just an inch or so high (“nanum” is Greek for “dwarf.”) It’s hard to miss, though, as it forms densely-packed mats of elegant pin-striped flowers ranging from whiteish-pink, to lavender, magenta, and purple.

In the land of the fairies

Androsace septentrionalis, June 8, 2020

A. septentrionalis in larger form, June 8, 2020

Common & scientific name
Northern fairy candelabra, Androsace septentrionalis

Family
Primrose, Primulaceae

Location
Waterfall, 10,100’ & Mountain Boy basin, 11,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This delightful diminutive is remarkably variable in its morphology (its form and structure).  It ranges from 1-8 inches in height, and can have a few to many flowers in its umbels (“umbel” refers to a cluster of flowers that radiate on their stalks, like the spokes on an umbrella).  Its variability appears to be related to elevation, moisture, aspect, light, and undoubtedly other factors of which humans know nothing, as this fairy undoubtedly prefers.

Big daddy dandelion

Tragapogon dubius, June 8, 2020

T. pratensis, June 16, 2020

Common & scientific name
Yellow salsify, Tragapogon dubius & T. pratensis

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Above winter gate, 8,700’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

A non-native known mostly for its huge, dandelion-like seed head, salsify was introduced from Europe owing to its edible roots.  The pointy phyllaries exceeding its ray florets distinguishTragapogon dubius (top) from T. pratensis (below).

Tragapogon seedhead, August 4, 2020

Patience pays

Ceanothus velutinus, June 8, 2020

Common & scientific name
Snowbrush, Ceanothus velutinus

Family
Buckthorn, Rhamnaceae

Location
Above winter gate, 8,700’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

A native evergreen shrub growing 2-9 feet tall with shiny, sticky leaves, its fruit is a capsule a few millimeters long which snaps open explosively to expel the three seeds onto the soil, where they may remain buried for well over 200 years before sprouting.

Really wet then really dry = exquisite!

Iris missouriensis, June 8, 2020

Irises abound at Twin Lakes, June 8, 2020

Common & scientific name
Rocky Mountain iris, Iris missouriensis

Family
Iris, Iridaceae

Location
Twin Lakes meadow, 9,700’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

More modest in size and coloring than its cultivated brethren, but always a thrill to find in the wild (and to this observer’s eye, more beautiful in its delicacy), this wild iris thrives in areas that are extremely wet before flowering and then almost desert-like the rest of the summer (like the large meadow adjacent to Twin Lakes’ western-most lake, left, or the meadow above MM 54 on the west side of the Pass, below).

I. missouriensis, July 7, 2020

The Broomrape family welcomes a new member

Castilleja sulphurea, June 8, 2020

Common & scientific name
Sulfur indian paintbrush, Castilleja sulphurea

Family
Broomrape, Orobanchaceae

Location
Between Lincoln Creek turnoff & Lost Man TH, 10,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

I always had a hard time understanding how the paintbrushes fit within the Snapdragon (Scrophularaceae) family, along with the penstemons and monkey flowers and louseworts.  Now I know they don’t!  Some time in the last few years when I wasn’t paying attention, they got moved to the Broomrape (Orobanchaceae) family, not because of their physical characteristics, but because of their genetics and the fact that they are parasitic on other plants, like the broomrapes.

100s of flowers in one

Erigeron grandiflorus/simples, June 8, 2020

Common & scientific name
Rocky Mountain alpine fleabane, Erigeron grandiflorus/simplex

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Mountain Boy basin, 11,200’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This large-headed but small-statured daisy is found throughout our subalpine and alpine meadows.  Its ray florets (the parts that look like petals) can number over 100. Its phyllaries (the small leaf-like parts enfolding its ray flowers) are covered in shaggy white or purple hairs.