Western Spring Beauty (Claytonia lanceolata)
Cone Peak Trail, Willamette National Forest, OR, 6/2017.
Spring Beauties are part of a group of plants sometimes called “spring ephemerals”, also including Blue-Eyed Grass, that harness the insulating properties of winter snowfall to send a shoot up from their underground bulb through the cold wet soil, during winter (more…)
Cutleaf Fleabane (Erigeron compositus)
Marmot Pass, Buckhorn Wilderness, 7/2017.
These pretty daisies were among many flowers blooming on Marmot Pass during our July visit. (more…)
Smooth Douglasia (Douglasia laevigata)
Royal Lake Campground, Olympic NP, 7/2016.
Last July we found a single specimen (above) of this uncommon primrose peeking out from among the rocks near Royal Lake Campground. One year later, and a few miles west, (more…)
Gordon’s Ivesia (Ivesia gordonii)
Cone Peak Trail, Willamette National Forest, OR, 6/2017.
From a distance, one might assume it to be Oregon Sunshine, given its bright yellow color and tendency to grow amid dry rock and shale near the top of mountains like central Oregon’s Cone Peak and Iron Mountain. (more…)
Flett’s Violet (Viola flettii)
Buckhorn Peak Trail, Buckhorn Wilderness, WA, 7/2017.
These lovely flowers are endemic to the Olympic Mountains. (more…)
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. (more…)
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. (more…)
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. (more…)
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, (more…)
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. (more…)
