Category Archives: Wildflowers

Native wildflowers encountered while exploring the hills of the Southern Interior.

Desert Yellow Fleabane

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Desert yellow fleabane (Erigeron linearis) is a perennial with a thick base and a branching base.   It is sometimes called fine-leaved daisy or linear-leaved daisy.   Straight stems range from short to 30 cm tall.    Leaves are mostly basal, linear, often close to the stems, and hairy.   Terminal flowers are ray-and-disk pattern with bright yellow petals from a involucre bracts. 

yellow fleabane

The flowering season is usually in May and June on the dry slopes, rocky ridges,  and in the sagebrush grasslands.   After flowering, achenes form with short, hairy pappus, to be dispersed in the wind over summer and fall.     

desert yellow fleabane

 

Showy Jacob’s-Ladder

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Showy Jacob’s-ladder (Polemonium pulcherrimum sp.) is a perennial herb growing from a taproot and a branched stem.  Clustered leaves are mostly basal and hairy.    The leaves are pinnately compound (featherlike in leaflets).    If handle leaves we will not a “skunky” odor.     The common name arises from the ladder-like shape of the leaves, a Biblical reference. Clusters of … Continue reading →

Western Spring Beauty

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Western spring beauty (Claytonia lanceolata) is a perennial that grows from a corm.    Several short stems (some underground) will have a few fleshy basal lanceolate leaves.  Whitish-pinkish flowers with deep pink veins emerge in spring with 2 sepals and 5 petals each in clusters.   After flowering, capsules with seeds develop in late spring and the leaves die back in … Continue reading →

Showy Milkweed

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Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) is an upright perennial which grows from rhizomes, 0.5 to 1 m in height with a stout stem.    The plant is hairy on the stems and leaves.     The central stem is somewhat hollow, but with a milky juice inside.    The leaves are mostly lanceolate with a point and have a central lighter-colored vein.    … Continue reading →

Parsnipflower Buckwheat

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Parsnip-flowered buckwheat (Eriogonum heracleoides) is a perennial herb that often grows in clumps in open areas.  Branches diverge from a woody base.  Leaves are usually greyish and woolly in a basal whorl.    Bracts may be present on stems below the inflorescence.  In an umbel shape, many small white-yellow emerge in clusters.   Some will appear reddish – rose as they … Continue reading →

Thompson’s Paintbrush

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Thompson’s Paintbrush (Castilleja thompsonii) is a perennial which can be found in the dry lower-elevation grasslands in mid-spring.   From a woody base branched stems rise to about 40 cm.   Linear leaves are green on the stem.    The upper leaves are in pairs and are lobed.   The inflorescence has the paintbrush shape with yellow (pale) bracts.    The flowers are … Continue reading →

Small-flowered Penstemon

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Small-flowered Penstemon (Penstemon procerus) is a perennial in the figwort family.    It grows from a woody base and often forms clumps.    The green leaves are oval to lanceolate, growing oppositely and a few leaves grow around the bae on short stems.   Small purple-blue flowers grow in whorls around the stem. After flowering, capsules form with many seeds.   They … Continue reading →

Old Man’s Whiskers

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Old man’s whiskers (Geum triflorum) is a clump-forming perennial in the rose family which flowers in spring on the Interior Plateau of B.C.   Other common names are prairie smoke or purple avens.    It spreads by rhizomes and establishes a mat of old leaf bases over time.   In spring a cluster of basal leaves appear.    Many compound, divided leaves … Continue reading →

One-Flowered Broomrape

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We have spotted one-flowered broomrape (Aphylon uniflorum) on open south-facing damp slopes a couple of times.   It is also called one-flowered cancer root and naked broomrape and it is in the Orobanche family.    It is a parasitic herb, feeding on stonecrop and other plants.    It is short, with a bare stalk and has a purple tube-like flower. We … Continue reading →

Chocolate Lily

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Chocolate lily (Fritillaria affinis sp.) is a perennial lily which grows from a bulb in spring.   Many people call it checker lily.    Each year the plant produces bulblets which help with propagating the species.   An unbranched stem usually has a few whorled leaves which are linear to lanceolate-shaped.   Two to five bell-shaped flowers appear in spring.   The flower has … Continue reading →