Idaho Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium idahoense)

Willow Creek Nature Preserve, Eugene, OR, 5/2016.

This is the most common of the bashful blue-eyed grasses we encounter,

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Wedgeleaf Violet (Viola cuneata)

Eight Dollar Mountain, Selma, OR, 4/2015.

A special two-colored violet found only in serpentine soils at the Oregon-California border, a unique botanical environment we return to again and again.

Bell Catchfly (Silene campanulata)

Viewpoint Mike Trail, Lost Creek Lake, OR, 4/2018.

We recently photographed this uncommon catchfly, and then realized we had also seen it on a previous trip visiting, Oregon’s southern Cascades.  Although common in this limited area, we more often see Parry’s Catchfly, elsewhere in the northwest. 

Toothed Owl’s Clover (Orthocarpus cuspidatus)

Pacific Crest Trail, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, OR, 7/2019.

At one point in the spectacular Hobart Bluff-Soda Mountain section of the Pacific Crest Trail in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, we found the trailside covered in these pretty Owl’s clovers we had never seen before. 

Mountain Coyote Mint (Monardella odoratissima)

Hyatt Lake Recreation Area, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, OR, 7/2019.

Apparently David Douglas found this quite lovely member of the mint family while botanizing the upper reaches of the Columbia River in the 1820s

Henderson’s Stars (Triteleia hendersonii)

Pacific Crest Trail near Green Springs, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, OR, 7/2019.

We were excited to find this dramatically-colored flower in a recent trip to the Siskiyou Mountains in southern Oregon.

Farewell to Spring (Clarkia amoena)

Tire Mountain, Willamette National Forest, OR, 7/2019.

Often seen growing amid browning grasses from drying soil, this lovely flower gets its common name from the fact that it appears as many spring blooms are dying back, often carpeting full hillsides.   

Striped Coralroot (Corallorhiza striata)

Hamilton Mountain Trail, Columbia Gorge, WA, 4/2015.

We find coral roots, except for this striped species, faithful companions that reward those that closely scan the pine-needle  floors throughout the wilderness areas of the Pacific Northwest.

Bach’s Calicoflower (Downingia bacigalupii)

Hyatt Lake Recreation Area, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, OR, 7/2019.

What a pleasant surprise to discover large patches of these tiny blue & yellow flowers in the dry outlet of Hyatt Lake, in Southern Oregon.

Royal Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium carneum)

Cone Peak Trail, Willamette National Forest, OR, 6/2016.

We rarely see this flower in full bloom, and then hardly ever without an insect of some sort on its lovely petals.