The asters are out!

Symphyotrichum foliaceum, 10,500’, July 22, 2020

S. foliaceum, 10,500’, July 22, 2020

Common & scientific name
Leafy aster, Symphyotrichum foliaceum (Aster foliaceus)

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Lost Man trailhead, 10,500’, Difficult Creek, 10,000’, and roadside, 9,700’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
What an incredibly variable plant this late-summer aster is!  Its wider “petals” (ray florets)and broader, layered, leaf-like phyllaries distinguish it from the earlier-blooming Erigerons. In subalpine and alpine meadows, it commonly grows just 6” high, with few flower heads, and is often a deep purple/lavender as shown at left. Roadside it grows up to 3’ high with many (lighter-colored) flowered heads and noticeably red stems (see below). And sometimes it’s in between (see bottom).

I just wish they had come up with a more memorable, or pronounceable, or spell-able, name to replace “Aster” with . . . .  

S. foliaceum, 9,700’ roadside, August 27, 2020

S. foliaceum, 9,700’ roadside, August 27, 2020

S. foliaceum, 10,000’ wet meadow, August 13, 2020

Angelic

Angelica grayi, July 21, 2020

Common & scientific name
Gray’s angelica, Angelica grayi

Family
Parsley, Apiaceae

Location
Ptarmigan area, 12,000

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This alpine carrot is unmistakeable, with its large umbel of greenish flowers and overall stocky demeanor.  It is usually found on the Pass near water in the company of many other flowers and grasses.  

How much trampling can a flower take?

Hieraceum albiflorum, July 21, 2020

Common & scientific name
White hawkweed, Hieraceum albiflorum

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Ptarmigan area, 11,000’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Another dandelion-like flower (ray florets only), but white, rather spindly, and considered a “weedy” species in some places, as it readily recolonizes disturbed ground (e.g., post-fire or logging). On the Pass it occurs infrequently on dry, open soil.  

As a subject of the US Forest Service’s Fire Effects study, it was learned that “White hawkweed is susceptible to high levels of human trampling. A study from western Montana revealed that white hawkweed has low (<10% increase) resilience in terms of short- and long-term recovery of relative cover after being trampled. Its resistance is listed as moderate (200 to 400 passes/year required to reduce frequency). It can tolerate light (75 to 100 passes/year) trampling and still recover.” 

Please don’t trample the daisies!

The elegant dandelion

Agoseris glauca, July 21, 2020

Common & scientific name
Pale agoseris, Agoseris glauca

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Ptarmigan Creek, 11,000’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Can look at first glance like a dandelion, with its single yellow flower head on a leafless stalk.  The big differences lie in the phyllaries and the basal leaves: the phyllaries do not curl over backwards like a dandelion’s, and are green with purple stripes; and the leaves are simple, not cut.  It’s fruit, called a cypsela, has soft, white bristles resembling the puff ball of a dandelion.

A. glauca, July 21, 2020

Reindeer pollination

Campanula rotundifolia, July 21, 2020

Common & scientific name
Arctic bellflower, Campanula uniflora

Family
Harebell, Campanulaceae

Location
Ptarmigan area, 12,000

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
The following comes from a website called The Flora of Svalbard.  Svalbard (in case you didn’t know, like I didn’t) is a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole. One of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas, it's known for its rugged, remote terrain of glaciers and frozen tundra sheltering polar bears, Svalbard reindeer and Arctic foxes. The Northern Lights are visible during winter, and summer brings the “midnight sun”—sunlight 24 hours a day.

What I found fascinating is how this other-worldly place’s treatment of this plant we enjoy in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado applies here equally:

“The plant flowers from mid July to mid August. Flowers potentially pollinated by insects but self pollination is probably common. We have no information on germination rate of seeds of the Svalbard populations; however, the plant must recruit regularly as populations of this relatively short-lived plant sustain in the same locations for a long time. . . . Local seed dispersal is facilitated by the stiff stems and the capsules with apical pores, resulting in ballistic dispersal during strong winds or when touched by animals (reindeer).”

Presumably elk, mountain goats, marmots & pika would perform the same role here!

Dirty feet

Antennaria media, July 21, 2020

Common & scientific name
Alpine or Rocky Mountain pussytoes, Antennaria media

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Ptarmigan area, 11,500’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Black or brownish phyllaries and its alpine location distinguish this pussytoes from others.  

A. media, August 24, 2020

Can you bear another purple daisy?

Erigeron ursinus, July 21, 2020

Common & scientific name
Bear River daisy, Erigeron ursinus

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Ptarmigan Creek, 10,500’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Yet another purple daisy to test your ID-ing skills.  Simple leaves slightly wider above the middle, phyllaries glandular & slightly hairy, stems bending near the ground and straightening, more often seen in our area below tree line, here in a dry spruce-fir forest.  Enjoy the (subtle) variation and the challenge!

Fish food, toilet paper, and self-servicing all in one!

Verbascum thapsus, July 21, 2020

Common & scientific name
Woolly mullein, Verbascum thapsus

Family
Evening primrose, Onograceae

Location
Weller Curve, 9,500

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
I always thought this roadside weed was good for emergency toilet paper and that was about it.  

Alas, the wonderfully rich and detailed USFS Fire Effects Information System taught me otherwise:  “Common mullein was likely introduced to the eastern United States more than 230 years ago. Before the Revolutionary War, common mullein seeds were brought and cultivated by early settlers for the easy collection of fish. . . . 

Given a seed source and a canopy opening, common mullein is a potential inhabitant of nearly any vegetation or community type. . . . 

Self and cross pollination of common mullein flowers are both possible. If by the end of the day an open flower has not been visited by a pollinator, it is self pollinated ("delayed selfing”).”

Cool beans!

The consummate babbling brook beauty

Micranthes odontoloma, July 21, 2020

Common & scientific name
Brook saxifrage, Micranthes odontoloma

Family
Saxifrage, Saxifragaceae

Location
Ptarmigan area, 11,500’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
The rosy-pink centers of its intricate, white-petaled flowers, splaying out from a leafless stem and usually set against a babbling brook background, makes Brook saxifrage one of the true delights of a summer hike.  It’s toothed, bright-green, heart-shaped basal leaves add to this plant’s consummate beauty.  

M. odontoloma, July 21, 2020

A nodding (and unpronounceable) beauty

Epilobium anagallidifolium, July 21, 2020

E. anagallidifolium, August 24, 2020

Common & scientific name
Alpine willowherb, Epilobium anagallidifolium

Family
Evening primrose, Onograceae

Location
Ptarmigan area, 11,500’ & north summit, 12,500’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Epilobiums are notoriously difficult to tell apart, as they often are found in the same areas (near water in the subalpine and alpine), but this ones flowers are always nodding, as seen in the photo, and its leaves don’t have teeth.  Like all members of the Evening primrose family (and the Mustard family), it has four petals, here rosy. 

A lovely, delicate plant almost always found streamside, or in mossy areas like those below, and often in the company of the next, equally lovely and delicate plant, Micranthes odontoloma, Brook saxifrage.  

E. anagallidifolium, August 24, 2020

Hoary, not hairy

Packera wernerifolia, July 17, 2020

Common & scientific name
Hoary groundsel, Packera wernerifolia

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Summit area, 12,300’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
An apparently variable yellow senecio (not always “hoary”), but easy to identify in our area owing to its location (alpine), stature (short), and reduced, bract-like stem leaves.  Named after another genus not found in the US—not Mr. Werner!

A slender fella

Hieraceum gracile, July 17, 2020

Common & scientific name
Slender hawkweed, Hieracium gracile

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Summit area, 12,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This strange, spindly flower is notable largely for the silver and black hairs covering its flower head, which consists solely of ray flowers (“petals”).  As with many sunflowers, after fertilization its flowers create a dandelion-like head of seed-carrying hairs that are disbursed by the wind. 

Indy Pass mascot

Senecio atratus, July 17, 2020

Common & scientific name
Black-tipped senecio, Senecio atratus

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Top Cut, 11,700’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
We LOVE this native flower at the Independence Pass Foundation because it doesn’t mind—maybe prefers—disturbed ground, like roadsides or rock retaining walls, it stabilizes steep slopes where other flowers find it hard to grow, it’s tall, handsome, and an unusual shade of gray-green (owing to the thick hairs on its leaves), and it grows in large colonies.  And it’s well-named and easy to remember: its phyllaries have distinct black tips!

S. atratus, July 17, 2020

An alpine arnica

Arnica rydbergii, July 17, 2020

Common & scientific name
Subalpine arnica,  Arnica rydbergii

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Summit area, 12,000’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This Arnica can be distinguished from the other half-dozen hard-to-tell-apart Arnicas by its location (likes treeline, dry slopes), single flower on top (unlike A. mollis which usually has three—a rare instance where Bill Weber got it wrong), less fuzzy than A. mollis or A. latifiolia, overall smaller, and as it ages the tips of its petals whiten (see photo below).

A. rydbbergii, July 23, 2020

Another east-sider

Lepidium alyssoides, July 15, 2020

Common & scientific name
Mesa pepperweed,  Lepidium alyssoides

Family
Mustard, Brassicaceae

Location
Twin Lakes roadside, 9,300’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Likes disturbed soil (like roadsides), and have never seen it on the west side of the Pass—prefers sagebrush communities, which Twin Lakes, even at an elevation of 9,300’, has in spades, owing to the rain shadow from the mountains along the Continental Divide. 

Black hairs matter

Erigeron melanocephalus, July 15, 2020

E. melanocephalus, underside, July 15, 2020

Common & scientific name
Blackhead daisy,  Erigeron melanocephalus

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Upper Lost Man, 12,300

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
There’s no mistaking this daisy: the black hairs on the underside of its flower, covering the phyllaries, make this an easy ID in the field.  Found in large numbers in the alpine, growing several inches tall with bright-white ray flowers.  Another well-named flower!

A paintbrush-lousewort cross

Orthocarpus luteus, July 15, 2020

Common & scientific name
Yellow owl clover,  Orthocarpus luteus

Family
Broomrape, Orobanchaceae

Location
Twin Lakes, 9,000

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
A bit paintbrush (Castilleja) like in its overall habit (and belonging to the same family, the broomrape), but closer examination shows it has individual flowers that distinguish it (and are more Pedicularis-like).  Seen in sagebrush and dry meadows primarily on the east side of the lower Pass. 

A long-limbed star

Stellaria longipes, July 15, 2020

Common & scientific name
Long-stalked starwort,  Stellaria longipes

Family
Pink, Capryophyllaceae

Location
Upper Lost Man, 11,500

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
This oh-so-delicate wildflower, standing just a few inches tall on a hairless, slender stalk with widely-spaced, opposite, grass-like leaves, can be found throughout the subalpine and alpine but seems to favor rocky outcrops or meadows streamside.  “Stellaria” means “star” and “longipes” means long-limbed.  At last, an aptly named flower!

S. longipes, July 15, 2020

One of three blueberries

Vaccinium cespitosum, July 15, 2020

Common & scientific name
Dwarf bilberry,  Vaccinium cespitosum

Family
Heath, Ericaceae

Location
Upper Lost Man, 11,500

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
Leaves widest above the middle, distinguishing it from its (sometimes) neighbor Vaccinium scoparium or V. myrtillus, but likes its neighbors, producing sweet little blueberries come August!

Big, fuzzy arnica

Arnica mollis, July 15, 2020

Common & scientific name
Hairy arnica,  Arnica mollis

Family
Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location
Upper Lost Man, 11,500

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact
As its name suggests, this arnica is fuzzy on its stems and leaves, grows taller than our other high-elevation arnicas, A. cordifolia, A. latifolia, or A. rydbergii,  and usually has three flower heads growing at the top.  It emerges as the common A. cordifolia, Heart-leaved arnica, is receding.