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, (more…)
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. (more…)
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. (more…)
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. (more…)
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. (more…)
Scabland Penstemon (Penstemon deustus)
Cone Peak Trail, Willamette National Forest, OR, 6/2019.
Amazingly….we continue to find more northwest penstemons! This one is unique in its stems of creamy white rather than the traditional purple, pink, or blue flowers (more…)
Leatherleaf Saxifrage (Leptarrhena pyrolifolia)
Bagley Creek, Mount Baker National Forest, WA, 7/2016.
We didn’t initial think this plant was a saxifrage because we mostly saw the red seed heads and stems, (more…)
Turkey Peas (Orogenia fusiformis)
Cone Peak, Willamette National Forest, OR, 6/2017.
This small and humble flower is often one of the earliest we find on hikes in the eastern gorge, and could be around now in places like the Dalles Mountain Ranch and Seven-Mile Hill west of The Dalles, (more…)
Nootka Rose (Rosa nutkana)
Willow Creek Natural Area, Eugene, OR, 5/2016.
For Valentine’s Day, we’re posting our first of several native roses from our region, (more…)
Varied-leaf Collomia (Collomia heterophylla)
Glacier Lake Trail, Goat Rocks Wilderness, Gifford Pinchot NF, WA, 6/2018.
The Varied-leaf Collomia is a much smaller sibling to the previously-posted Grandiflora collomia. Although their tiny sweet pink flowers (more…)
