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…)
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. (more…)
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. (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…)
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 (more…)
Martindale’s Desert Parsley (Lomatium martindalei)
Silver Star Mountain, WA, 5/2015.
Although we’ve long enjoyed the “spring gold” dusting of these flowers across rocky landscapes in the early spring, (more…)
Siskiyou Mat aka Dwarf Ceanothus (Ceanothus pumilus)
Illinois River Trail, Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, OR, 3/2018.
This is one of two similar ceanothus ground covers whose rugged foliage set it apart from the larger more common trailside shrubs in the buckthorn family, (more…)
Kalmiopsis (Kalmiopsis leachiana)
Illinois River Trail, Kalmiopsis Wilderness, OR, 3/2018.
It’s hard to believe that this plant was unknown until Portland botanist Lilla Leach and her husband discovered it in 1930 (more…)
Shrubby Penstemon (Penstemon fruticosus var. fruticosus)
Rainy Lake Road, OR, 6/2014.
Looking very similar to both davidsonii and rupicola (of which, only the latter is found in the gorge), (more…)
