Hymenoxis grandiflora, June 23, 2020
Common & scientific name
Old-Man-of-the-Mountain, Hymenoxis grandiflora
Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae
Location
Summit, 12,100’
Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This common alpine resident stands out with its comparatively huge flower head and its wooly-hairy stem and leaves. According to Dr. David Inouye, who for 4+ decades has studied alpine plants and their pollinators at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, just over the Elk Range in Gothic, H. grandiflora grows for 12-15 years without flowering, flowers once, and then dies. So treat every Old-Man-of-the-Mountain you see with reverence, and imagine (if you can) your own last summer . . . .
H. grandiflora, June 30, 2020