Small-flowered Fiddleneck (Amsinckia menziesii)

Labyrinth Trail, Columbia Gorge, WA 6/2013.

The nickname comes from the flower head’s resemblance to the curled tuning head of a violin.  The bristle-like hairs that cover this plant can irritate the skin.  The tiny black nuts that are produced by each flower are said to be poisonous to cattle.

  In his book Sagebrush Country:  A Wildflower Sanctuary, Ronald Taylor says that these “weedy plants…thrive on disturbed areas such as roadsides and overgrazed ranges;  they cannot compete successfully in unaltered plant communities.”

Labyrinth Trail, Columbia Gorge, WA, 6/2013.

Horsethief Butte, Columbia Hills State Park, Columbia Gorge, WA, 4/2014.