Steer’s Head (Dicentra uniflora)

Crescent Mountain Trail, Willamette National Forest, OR, 6/2017.

To find these unique and delicate members of the  bleeding heart family, you  have to be looking for them.  

Hoary False Yarrow (Chaenactis douglasii)

Horsethief Lake, Columbia Hills State Park, WA. 5/2017.

Also known as Douglas’ dusty maidens and Hoary pincushion, this white flower with woolly soft silvery leaves blends into the background.  

Large-flowered Collomia (Collomia grandiflora)

Major Creek Road, Columbia Gorge, WA. 5/2017.

This small flower stands out for its unusual salmon color and contrasting blue pollen. It grows in dry sandy soils west of the Continental Divide.

Violet Suksdorfia (Suksdorfia violacea)

Castle Rock Trail, Tumwater Canyon, WA.  5/2017

Ran across this single specimen of an uncommon late-spring flower we’d spent days looking for in the Columbia Gorge,

Tweedy’s Lewisia (Lewisia tweedyi)

Chiwaukum Creek Trail, Wenatchee NF, WA, 5/2017.

The largest member of the Lewisia family grows at low and mid-elevations almost exclusively in the Wenatchee Mountains in central Washington.  Frank Tweedy, a botanist with the US Geological Survey stumbled upon this beauty while working with the Northern Pacific Railway in 1882.  

Hooded Ladies Tresses (Spiranthes romanzoffiana)

Eden Park Trail, Mt. Hood Wilderness, OR, 8/2016.

We stumbled across this fen of Ladies Tress orchids in the moist alpine meadows of Mt. Hood’s north side in late August.

Common Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris)

Bagley Lake Trail, Mt. Baker Wilderness, WA. 7/2016.

Our second carnivorous plant post!!  

Fringed Pinesap (Pleuricospora fimbriolata)

Table Rock Trail, Table Rock Wilderness, OR 8/2016.

Easy to miss, and difficult to identify

Yellow Mountain Heather (Phyllodoce glanduliflora)

Horseshoe Basin, Pasayten Wilderness, WA, 7/2016.

We’ve only encountered this heather variety a handful of times; 

Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum)

 

School Canyon Trail, Badger Pass Wilderness, OR, 5/2016.

We’ve only recently become aware of these attractive plants.