Once in a lifetime

Frasera speciosa, June 26, 2025

Common & scientific name

Green gentian, Frasera speciosa

Family

Gentian, Genianaceae

Location

Lincoln Creek Road, 10,500’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

Blooming after 20-80 years of storing up nutrients in its roots and waiting for the right time, this monocarpic plant blooms once then dies. This year, those who chose to make it their first and last summer on earth were few and far between. RMBL research indicates that their flourishing depends on a wet summer four years prior. 2021 . . . not a big summer moisture-wise.

Same

A work of art

Iris missouriensis, June 24, 2025

Common & scientific name

Rocky Mountain iris, Iris missouriensis

Family

Iris, Iridaceae

Location

Roadside meadow, 10,400’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

More modest in size and coloring than its cultivated brethren, but always a thrill to find in the wild (and to this observer’s eye, more beautiful in its delicacy), this wild iris thrives in wet areas like Twin Lakes meadow and the Grottos

I may be small, but . . .

Primula angustifolia, June 22, 2025

Common & scientific name

Alpine primrose, Primula angustifolia

Family

Primrose, Primulaceae

Location

Lower Twining, 12,400’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

Found only in Colorado and northern New Mexico, this diminutive version of its much taller cousin, the water-loving Parry’s primrose, is found on dry subalpine and alpine ridges, often in the protection of rocks. Its neon-magenta flowers, largely identical to those of Parry’s, light up the tundra under our feet.

Smokin' soft

Geum triflorum, June 22, 2025

Common & scientific name

Prairie smoke, Geum triflorum

Family

Rose, Rosaceae

Location

North Fork Lake Creek TH, 10,900’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This sublimely soft, rosy, nodding flower is always a delight to find, whether it’s a single plant or whether it fills a meadow.  Its seed heads are reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss hair style (see bottom left). Interestingly, it is the plant’s rosy bracts and sepals, not its small, pale petals just protruding at the tip of the flower, that give prairie smoke its elegant color and shape.

Upper right we have a rare white morph, in which a mutation led to a lack of rose-pink pigment. The plant world never fails to surprise!

A rare find

Draba globosa, June 22, 2025

Common & scientific name

Beavertip draba, Draba globosa

Family

Mustard, Brassicaceae

Location

Blue Lake Basin, 13,000’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

A rare alpine draba, standing an inch high, with a tight mat of leaves. Its stem and leaves are mostly glabrous (non-hairy), somewhat glandular, with a few stiff hairs along the leaf edges and an extra-thick, stiff, terminal hair at the apex of the leaf (hence the “beavertip”—although not exactly sure what that means). This one is easy to miss!

Meet me by the lake

Kalmia microphylla, June 22, 2025

Common & scientific name

Alpine laurel, Kalmia microphylla

Family

Heath, Ericaceae

Location

Blue Lake Basin, 12,600’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

Is there any more delightful sight than coming upon a high alpine lake or stream lined with Kalmia?  Its bright pink petals are fused into a shallow, saucer-shaped bowl, with anthers that are held under spring-like tension until a large-bodied pollinator (like a bumblebee) triggers the stamen and is showered by pollen.  “Kalmia” comes from one of the star pupils of Carl Linnaeus (the inventor of the binomial system and botanist extraordinaire), Peter Kalm, who collected 60 new species for Linnaeus in North America in 1748, including Alpine laurel.

Break on through

Saxifrage austromontana, June 21, 2025

Common & scientific name

Spotted saxifrage, Saxifraga austromontana

Family

Saxifrage, Saxifragaceae austromontana

Location

Grottos, 9,500’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This delightfully dainty saxifrage earns its name as a “rock breaker,” as it is usually found sprouting out of the side of a rock crevice or fracture.  Saxifrages grow as far north as any species of wildflower in the world, and as such are quite at home in our high mountains.

Looks good, smells great, tastes . . . ?

Rosa woodsii, June 17, 2025

Common & scientific name

Wood’s rose, Rosa woodsii

Family

Rose, Rosaceae

Location

Roadside, 9,000’’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

There are few flowers that cry for attention like Wood’s rose, between its swoony smell and showy flowers ranging in color from light pink to deep magenta. Found most often on the Pass in Aspen groves or roadside, its fruits (“rose hips”) are known for their nutritional value and high vitamin c content, but I’ve generally found them to have a mealy texture and bland taste. I am grateful to the Southwest Colorado Wildflowers website for suggesting they are best eaten after several frosts!

Purple jewel of the alpine

Besseya alpina, June 16, 2025

Common & scientific name

Alpine besseya or alpine kittentails, Besseya alpina

Family

Plantain, Plantaginaceae

Location

Twining, 13,300’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

This gem of an alpine flower is found only in the high mountains of the Four Corners states, and most abundantly in Colorado.  A swift glance might mistake it for silky phacelia, Phacelia sericea, but its leaves are dark green and thick, not feathery, it stands just a couple of inches tall ,and it sometimes pushes itself out of the snow. It is usually found nestled within rock gardens, and is always a worthy find.

Fairy time

Calypso bulbosa, June 12, 2025

Let me paint you a picture

Castilleja miniata, June 10, 2025

Common & scientific name

Red paintbrush, Castilleja miniata

Family

Broomrape, Orobanchaceae

Location

Roadside, 9,500’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

Paintbrushes owe their lovely coloring not to their flowers, but to their bracts, specialized leaves which in this case are red (or orange, or deep red, or . . . ). This species of paintbrush is thought to be the second most widely distributed paintbrush in the world.

Pika produce

Geum rossii, June 9, 2025

Common & scientific name

Alpine avens, Geum rossii

Family

Rose, Rosaceae

Location

East summit, 12,300’’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

Alpine avens, one of our most common alpine plants, can often be seen in the mouth of the Pass’s mascot, the American pika.  This is surprising because alpine avens contain tannins, bitter-tasting compounds that are intended to make them unpalatable to animals before their fruits or seeds are ripe. (Tannins cause that astringent, mouth-coating feeling you get from biting into an unripe pear—yuck).  However, those same tannins act as preservatives, which help the pika preserve the other plants they store in their winter “haypiles” so they don’t mold or rot during their long winter lock-down.  And alpine avens’ leaves turn a lovely red in late summer, blanketing the browning tundra.  So we love alpine avens for numerous reasons!

Lucky us

Trifolium dasyphyllum, June 9, 2025

Common & scientific name

Alpine clover, Trifolium dasyphyllum

Family

Pea, Fabiaceae

Location

East summit, 12,300’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

One of our three throughly delightful alpine clovers, this early bloomer can be distinguished from its similarly shaped but (usually) later blooming cousin, T. parryi, by its lighter overall color (often white or light pink) and darker, contrasting (here magenta) keel, where T. parryi is a darker magenta or purple overall, without the boldly contrasting keel

Snow cinquefoil

Potentilla nivea, June 9, 2025

Common & scientific names

Snow cinquefoil, Potentilla nivea

Family

Rose, Rosaceae

Location

East summit, 12,300’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known facts

Our most common alpine cinquefoil, its three-parted leaves are densely white/hairy below, greener on top (but still hairy: see photos to left and below). There is substantial confusion/flux around a number of Potentillas, including this one (does it include P. uniflora, for example? or is the difference that it lacks the cottony hairs on snow cinquefoil’s petioles?), and they do tend to hybridize. But for now most experts seem to agree this cinquefoil is properly classified.  For now, anyway . . .

Lily of the alpine

Lloydia serotina, June 9, 2025

Common & scientific name

Alp lily, Lloydia serotina

Family

Lily, Liliaceae

Location

East summit, 12,300’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

A dainty lily with purple pencil markings on its white petals, grass-like leaves, and standing just 4 or 5” high, easily overlooked hiding among rocks or other alpine flowers and grasses.  Worth seeking out!

Beauty subjective

Descurainia incisa, June 9, 2025

Common & scientific name

Mountain tansymustard, Descurainia incisa

Family

Mustard, Brassicaceae

Location

Winter gate, 8,500’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

Yes, it’s weedy looking, tall and stringy, but it’s native, it’s edible, and it’s part of the great floral melting pot!

Distinguish Descurainia species by their siliques (seed pods) and their leaves (seen below, a particularly large one), using a good key by Weber or Ackerman. I won’t bore you with how I arrived at D. incisa .

A beautiful stinker

Polemonium confertum, June 9, 2025

Common & scientific name

Sky pilot, Polemonium viscosum and Rocky Mountain sky pilot, Polemonium confertum

Family

Phlox, Polemoniaceae

Location

Summit, 12,100’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

If you’ve ever been scrambling along a rocky alpine ridge and swore you smelled a skunk, you were (sort of) correct!  Sky pilot, a common but striking tundra flower, sometimes goes by the name “Skunkweed,” owing to the strong odor it sometimes puts out.

The photos here is of P. confertum—with widely flaring, light blue or blue-purple flowers, compared to P. viscosum, with more tubular and deeper purple flowers.

Carpe diem!

Linum lewisii, June 9, 2025

Common & scientific name

Blue flax, Linum lewisii

Family

Flax, Linaceae

Location

Winter gate, 8,500’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

“Pluck the day [for it is ripe], trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.”  This is the more accurate and complete translation of the oft-cited “carpe diem,” which is usually reduced to “seize the day” and leaves out “quam minimum credula postero.”  I prefer this translation because it captures perfectly, in botanical terms even, the lesson of the blue flax: it blooms for exactly one day.  Its petals open in the morning, and fall off by afternoon.  Blue flax knows no tomorrow.  Would that we all could live that way!

A pointillist paintbrush

Castilleja linarifolia, June 9, 2025

Common & scientific name

Wyoming paintbrush, Castilleja linarifolia

Family

Broomrape, Orobanchaceae

Location

Roadside, 8,300’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

One of five species of paintbrushes found on the Pass, Wyoming paintbrush (so named because it is the state flower of Wyoming) is found at the lowest elevations on the Pass. Typically this species is identified as a late summer flower, but not on the Pass.  C. linarifolia is the tallest and skinniest paintbrush in appearance, due to its mostly linear leaves, and does not have the soft, fuzzy appearance of its red cousin, Castilleja miniata.  It occasionally takes on varying shades of yellow and orange, likely through  mutation.

Your (lower) roadside companion

Heterotheca villosa, June 9, 2025

Common & scientific name

Hairy golden aster, Heterotheca villosa

Family

Sunflower, Asteraceae

Location

Roadside, 8,200’

Fun, weird, helpful, or little known fact

While all guide books describe this plant as “highly variable” (in size, leaf shape, hairiness, etc.), it is easily identifiable by its strongly pungent smell, location (dry, exposed places, often roadside), and its numerous yellow flowers atop a mound of grayish-green leaves.  Its alpine cousin, H. pumila, looks similar (and they may interbreed), but it generally has larger yellow flowers and, well, grows higher.  I tried for years to distinguish these two species, but have now decided not to make the perfect the enemy of the good: if it’s up high, it’s H. pumila, if it’s not, it’s H. villosa.