interesting bits

Showing 25–36 of 106 results

  • Cirsium arvense / Canada thistle

    • purple or lavender clearly-thistle flower heads
    • multiple small flower heads per stem
    • deeply lobed, spiny leaves, but stems not spiny
    • clonal and perennial
    • in clumps or along roads, sometimes quite large/long

  • Comandra umbellata / bastard toadflax

    • teeny, funnel-shaped white-ish flowers in clusters
    • small plants, thick-ish, pointy stem leaves; more oval basal leaves
    • clonal - may colonize large areas

  • Corallorhiza wisteriana / spring coralroot

    • small, easily missed in the forest duff
    • no leaves, no green parts
    • flowers have white lips, possible spots, no eared tabs
    • scape (flowering stalk) purple, or yellow, or brown
    • may stay dormant for years at a time

  • Corydalis aurea / scrambled eggs

    • prostrate herb, up to 15" tall
    • moist but well-drained soils, including on roadsides
    • yellow tubular flowers, with spurs
    • highly dissected leaves, blue-grey except when young
    • fruits are pod-like, resembling peas or beans

  • Crepis acuminata / tapertip hawksbeard

    • leaves (diagnostic) - long; many deep triangular, pointed lobes; upright, grey-green; milky sap
    • flowers - 5-10 rays, no disc florets; yellow; up to 70 per plant
    • dry, open places in foothills; commonly with sagebrush

  • Dactylis glomerata / orchardgrass

    • perennial bunchgrass
    • branched inflorescence with lowest branch well below the others
    • spikelets wedge-shaped, flattened in tight clusters
    • florets green to red/purple tinged; grey-brown when seeds mature
    • introduced and widespread, but not in wet areas

  • Dicentra uniflora / steer’s head

    • looks like a very small, peach-colored long-horned steer's skull
    • leaves are 3-fold compound; leaflets deeply divided
    • leaves and flowers appear to be separate plants
    • on rocky, vernally-moist slopes right at snowmelt
    • considered hard to find but not rare

  • 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

  • Draba nemorosa / yellow whitlow-grass

    • teeny, often silvery plant with teeny yellow 4-petal flowers
    • rosette leaves have trichomes even when not really silvery
    • annual ephemeral seen soon after snowmelt
    • usually exposed near or on rocks, dry slopes
    • flat, elliptical seed capsules

  • Drymocallis arguta / tall cinquefoil

    • yellow flowers, 5 petals with pointy green sepals between
    • many stamens; central disk of yellow pistils
    • flowers in clusters with short stems (cyme)
    • most leaves basal - pinnately compound, coarsely toothed, obovate
    • many soil types, but not overly moist

  • Drymocallis glandulosa / sticky cinquefoil

    • deeply lobed (almost compound) leaves (3-5 lobes)
    • clusters of cream or white 5-petaled flowers
    • pointy green sepals visible between non-overlapping petals
    • ≥25 stamens
    • sticky stems, involucres and buds (glandular hairs)

  • Elodea canadensis / Elodea

    • submerged with a stem and whorls of small, oblong leaves
    • usually has 3 leaves per node
    • leaf whorls denser near the growing tips
    • stems may be quite long or floating as fragmented bits

Showing 25–36 of 106 results