early spring

Showing 1–12 of 33 results

  • Agropyron cristatum / crested wheatgrass

    • cool season grass growing in dense tufts
    • easily recognized by planar spike
    • spikelets overlap and are angled with respect to the stem
    • common

  • Allium acuminatum – tapertip onion

    • umbels with 10-40 flowers atop a tall scape
    • 6 magenta (or white) tepals per flower
    • few leaves and all withered prior to flowering
    • dry hillsides, sun-exposed rocky meadows and slope, volcanic areas

  • Boechera retrofracta / reflexed rockcress

    • spring blooming crucifer (brassica)
    • white or lavender, pendent, bell-shaped flowers
    • many flowers on a single stalk (raceme)
    • hairy rosette and stem leaves
    • usually in rocky, sagebrush communities

  • Bromus tectorum / cheatgrass

    • short bunchgrass, 2 to 30 in at floweirng
    • panicle with all florets to one side; long awns
    • early season growth, flowering, seed drop
    • florets green, turning purple as seeds mature
    • highly invasive!

  • Camassia quamash / small camas

    • immediately visible for its star-shaped blue flowers and yellow anthers
    • flowers borne on a spike-like raceme, opening from the bottom up
    • multiple flowers open at one time
    • leaves are grass-like, growing from a bulb
    • large seed capsules with ca. 30 roundish black seeds, ripe in late summer

  • Carduus nutans / musk thistle

    • quite large, very purple flower heads
    • spiny everything... leaves, stems, bracts
    • biennial - large rosette of nasty leaves in first year
    • dandelion-like fruit that flies away like the down of a thistle
    • disturbed lands... pastures, wastelands, roadsides, construction sites

  • Castilleja covilleana / Rocky Mountain paintbrush

    • clearly, one of the "Indian paintbrushes"
    • early bloomer in the spring, even when quite short
    • bright red, orange (sometimes yellow) bracts
    • bracts and leaves have 3-7 deep lobes with long, soft hairs
    • often grows in clusters

  • Castilleja miniata / scarlet paintbrush

    • bright red, or orange or sometimes yellow bracts that are mistaken for flowers
    • looks like a red feather duster, but only a few inches long
    • generally low, and along streams or roadsides on hills where there is moisture
    • leaves ovoid with prominent veins, no petioles

  • Claytonia lanceolata / lanceleaf spring beauty

    • small, very early spring, ephemeral
    • 5 white or pink-ish petals with pink/purple stripes
    • pair of opposite leaves at mid-stem; lanceolate

  • Delphinium bicolor / low larkspur

    • short plant with a spike of purple flowers
    • individual flowers have a pronounced spur out the back
    • leaves are few, round, deeply lobed, about the size of a quarter
    • widespread throughout the valley and on the hills
    • appears and blooms soon after snowmelt

  • Dodecatheon pulchellum / shooting star

    • five pink to lavender lobes projecting backwards
    • white or yellow petal bases above a squiggly purple ring
    • anthers joined into a projecting point; stigma projecting past the point
    • snowmelt to early spring
    • wet meadows to sagebrush communities

  • Equisetum arvense / field horsetail

    • segmented brown stems with spore-bearing "cone" at the tip
    • or - segmented green stem with thin green branches radiating from nodes
    • distinctly visible nodes along the stems
    • no leaves or flowers
    • found in many different habitats

Showing 1–12 of 33 results