These fireworks aren't always on display

Ipomopsis aggregata, May 26, 2023

June 1, 2023

Common & scientific name

Scarlet gilia, Ipomopsis aggregata

Family

Phlox, Polemoniaceae

Location

Roadside near Difficult, 8,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

Scarlet gilia, also know as Fairy trumpet, is among our most flamboyant and unmistakeable wildflowers. Like Old Man of the Mountain, Green Gentian, and other of our well known wildflowers, these gleaming crimson trumpets are monocarpic—that is, they bloom once, after a half dozen or so years of storing up nutrients in their roots, then die.