Ligusticum tenuifolium, August 10, 2023
Common & scientific name
Slender-leaf lovage, Ligusticum tenuifolium
Family
Parsley, Apiaceae
Location
Roaring Fork River, 9,800’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This plant is smaller, has fernier/more feathery leaves, and is found in wetter places than its cousin, Ligusticum porteri, Porter’s lovage, also known as Osha. Osha is famous for its medicinal properties, as taught to Native Americans by grizzlies.
Antennaria media, August 10, 2023
Common & scientific name
Rocky Mountain pussytoes, Antennaria media
Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae
Location
Mountain Boy, 11,400’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This species of pussytoes has black or blackish-green, phyllaries, is usually found above treeline, and is quite small, like this 3” specimen.
Gentianella amarella, August 10, 2023
August 26
Common & scientific name
Autumn dwarf gentian, Gentianella amarella subspecies acuta
Family
Gentian, Gentianaceae
Location
Mountain Boy, 12,000’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Autumn dwarf gentian’s flowers are a lovely shade of lavender. They grow in small clusters from the tip of the stem and from most of the leaf axils. They have four or five petals, equal in length, that flare widely to reveal a circle of long white hairs. Autumn dwarf gentian can be tall like this plant, or much smaller depending on elevation and conditions. While July 26 hardly counts as “autumn,” it is like all gentians (save green gentian) a sign of the waning summer season.
Upper Lost Man, 12,100’, August 26, 2023
Listera cordata, August 10, 2023
Common & scientific name
Heart-leaved twayblade, Listera cordata
Family
Orchid, Orchidaceae
Location
Old road, 9,700’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
From the wonderful North American Orchid Conservation Center: This species “has the widest distribution of any species in its genus, growing throughout the western United States, across Canada, around the Great Lakes and on the East Coast from North Carolina to Maine. It produces two opposite heart-shaped leaves on its green or reddish purple stem, and bears up to 25 yellowish green or reddish purple flowers. The labellum splits and forms two elongated lobes. This orchid is known to form colonies of several hundred plants. It typically grows on peat-moss hummocks in forested swamps, as well as in moist woodlands and in coniferous or mixed forests.” This describes exactly where this plant was found!
Veronica ritteriana, August 4, 2023
August 4
Common & scientific name
Ritter’s kitttentail, Veronica ritteriana (?)
Family
Plantain, Plantiganaceae
Location
Ruby area, 12,700’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
(?) because this plant is identified by most botanists as being endemic to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. Alas, here it is, (and many more of them), at the edge of Pitkin and Gunnison Counties in the Collegiate Peaks. Next year I will return earlier to get it in full bloom to confirm, but this seems the most likely Veronica of the bunch.
Leucanthemum vulgare, August 7, 2023
Common & scientific name
Oxeye daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare
Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae
Location
Roadside everywhere up to 11,800’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
YES, they’re pretty, YES, they’re cheery, YES, you may stop, look, and enjoy them. Then do your part for our native wildflowers and pull them! Oxeyes are a highly invasive perennial that LOVE disturbed places like roadsides—even a fresh layer of asphalt won’t dissuade them! A single plant can produce up to 200 seeds per flowering head, sitting atop up to 40 flowering stems per plant—that leads to a ginormous seed bank. Leucanthemum vulgare is native to Europe and was introduced into the United States as an ornamental in the 1800s. In the 2000s, it is the bane of Independence Pass.
Ranunculus alismifolius, August 7, 2023
August 7
Common & scientific name
Plantain leaf buttercup, Ranunculus alismifolius
Family
Buttercup, Ranunculaceae
Location
Jack Creek basin, 11,400
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Found in wet areas, usually early summer but in this case, an area where the snow recently melted and the flowers think it’s June, not August! Smallish flowers compared to other buttercups, and simple leaves.
Packera crocatus, August 4, 2023
August 4
Common & scientific name
Two-leaved groundsel or ragwort, Packera crocatus (dimorphophylla)
Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae
Location
Ruby area, 12,300’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
A number of yellow sunflowers previously included within the Senecio genus were moved three decades ago into the Packera genus. P. crocatus (called by some botanists dimorphophylla) has triangular-shaped, clasping/auricled stem leaves and can be orange in coloring, like those shown here (indeed, P. crocatus and P. dimorphophylla used to be classified as different species, largely owing to their coloring, P. crocatus being the orange one).
Upper Lost Man, 12,000’, August 26, 2023
Senecio amplectens var. holmii, August 4, 2023
Mountain Boy, 12,200’, August 10, 2023
Common & scientific name
Holmes’ alpine ragwort, Senecio amplectens var. holmii
Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae
Location
Above Ruby, 12,200’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
A smaller variation of the taller, scragglier alpine ragwort, with purple phyllaries, seen higher in the alpine on loose dirt or scree or tucked into rocks.
Summit, 12,000’, August 7, 2023
Helianthella quinquenervis, August 4, 2023
Common & scientific name
Five-nerved sunflower, Helianthella quinquenervis
Family
Aster, Asteraceae
Location
Grizzly Reservoir area, 10,500’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
If you’ve hiked to Crested Butte over West Maroon Pass before, you know this flower. Standing up to four feet tall with five (usually) prominent veins on the leaves, this is an unmistakeable sunflower that is seen primarily in the Lincoln Creek area on the Pass.
Cirsium scariosum, August 4, 2023
Ruby area, 12,700’, August 4, 2023
Common & scientific name
Elk thistle, Cirsium scariosum
Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae
Location:
Ruby area, 12,500’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This wonderfully-whacky thistle is uncommon on the Pass, but is always a treat to find. It’s flowers are always stemless, whether the plant stands several feet tall or just 6” off the ground. Its leaves are light green. When it is in the form shown here, a flat, stemless rosette with whitish-purple flowers clustered in the center, it looks like a giant sunflower. Beautiful, no?
Ruby area, 12,500’, August 4, 2023
Saxifraga hyperborea/rivularis, August 2, 2023
Ruby area, 12,700’, August 4, 2023
Common & scientific name
Alpine saxifrage, Saxifraga hyperborea/rivularis
Family
Saxifrage, Saxifragaceae
Location
Riverside, 10,400’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This total jewel of a flower, also known as “pygmy saxifrage,” is almost always found tucked into wet caves and boulder-created crevasses. It stands just three inches high, is usually single-flowered, has adorably-lobed leaves, and is guaranteed to make your day. Never let rock gardens go unexplored: treasures await!
Ruby area, 12,600’, August 4, 2023
Moneses uniflora, August 2, 2023
Common & scientific name
Wood nymph, Moneses uniflora
Family
Heath, Ericaceae
Location
Braille trail, 10,300’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Standing just a few inches off the ground, this perennial favorite’s single, nodding flower hides a clever stigma that can take pollen off the back of a visiting bumblebee after the bee has shaken pollen off the flower’s anthers. Look for this shy beauty in moist spruce-fir woods.
Old road, 9,800’, August 10, 2023
Delphinium barbeyi, August 2, 2023
August 2
Common & scientific name
Subalpine larkspur, Delphinium barbeyi
Family
Buttercup, Ranunculaceae
Location
Green Mountain, 11,600’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
A giant of the subalpine, look for it growing over six feet tall near monkshood, bluebells, cow parsnip, and triangle-leaved senecio. “Delphinium” is from the Latin “delphinus” meaning dolphin. With a little imagination, its spike of purple flowers looks like a pod of swimming dolphins.
August 2
Senecio pudicus, August 2, 2023
Common & scientific name
Bashful ragwort, Senecio pudicus
Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae
Location
Weller Lake, 9,600’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This rayless ragwort, grows up against rocks, and its heads droop “bashfully,” I guess!
August 2
Erigeron formossisimus, August 2, 2023
Common & scientific name
Beautiful fleabane, Erigeron formossisimus
Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae
Location
Roadside, 9,800’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
THIS is the purple daisy you see roadside, everywhere, around the middle of the Pass (9,500-10,500), standing 6-10” high. To distinguish if from other Erigerons—of which we have MANY—look for glandular, hairy, purplish phyllaries; stems with straight hairs, that usually support a single flower; and stem leaves progressively reduced in size and number as you move up the stem.
Parnassia fimbriata, August 2, 2023
Common & scientific name
Fringed Grass of Parnassus, Parnassia fimbriata
Family
Saxifrage, Saxifragaceae, Staff Tree, Celastraceae, or Parnassus, Parnassiaceae
Location
Riverside, 10,400’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This bright white, late-blooming, water-loving flower is always a delight to find, often in roadside ditches where orchids and elephanthead bloomed earlier. Its petals are fringed at the base, and its leaves heart-shaped. While the family it belongs to is in dispute (or in transition may be a better way to put it), its delicate beauty is not!
Roadside, 10,300’
Erigeron lonchophyllus, August 2, 2023
Common & scientific name
Short-rayed fleabane, Erigeron lonchophyllus
Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae
Location
Lower Green Mountain, 11,000’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This very occasional plant on the Pass grows primarily in the upper montane or subalpine in rocky, moist areas. Its ray florets (petals) are quite short and thin, almost giving the plant the appearance of having only disk flowers. An unusual but striking plant to find!
August 2
Swertia perennis, August 2, 2023
Common & scientific name
Star gentian, Swertia perennis
Family
Gentian, Gentianaceae
Location
Woods riverside, 10,400’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
After the oh-so-different green gentian, which grows 3-6’ tall and blooms midsummer, this is often the first purple gentian to bloom, and marks the beginning of the end of wildflower season. Always found in wet meadows or streamside, star gentian, with its soft-purple coloring and pointed petals, can be found as a singular treat or in the company of dozens. It is a poignant reminder of the nearing end of summer—enjoy it fully!
North of summit, 12,400’, August 5, 2023
Pyrola minor, August 2, 2023
Common & scientific name
Green-flowered wintergreen, Pyrola minor
Family
Wintergreen, Pyrolaceae
Location
Woods on river, 10,300’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This wntergreen is less common in our woods than its cousins P. chlorantha (also yellow/white) or P. asarifolia (magenta/pink). Its style is straight and shorter than that of P. chlorantha. It grows in moist, shaded woods. And I just learned that, like all Pyrolas, it does not have a true “stem”: just a stalk that its raceme of flowers grow on.