nutrient poor soils

Showing 37–48 of 66 results

  • Lupinus spp. / silvery and silky lupins

    • palmately compound, usually silvery-green leaves
    • 5-9 leaflets per leaf; long petioles
    • flowers on long, spikey racemes, blooming from bottom upward
    • numerous flowers, but all rather teeny; most purple or blue
    • flowers are above the leaves
    • seeds in short, hairy pods

  • Madia glomerata / mountain tarweed

    • stems, leaves, flowers - strongly aromatic, like tar
    • sticky glandular hairs cover foliage and floral bracts
    • flowers in clusters with 1 to 3 yellow ray florets
    • disk florets retain visible petals; black stamens

  • Medicago lupulina / black medic

    • prostrate, long creeping stems
    • compound leaves with 3 small, rounded leaflets
    • teeny yellow flowers in very small button-like clusters
    • disturbed areas with compacted soil - roadsides & wastelands

  • Onobrychis viciifolia / sainfoin

    • forage legume, taller than alfalfa
    • pink pea-like flowers with striped banner petal and darker keel
    • spiky inflorescence (a raceme) blooming from bottom up - up to 50 flowers
    • pinnately compound leaves with single terminal leaflet
    • naturalized with sagebrush and mountain shrubs, but also in the central Valley

  • Opuntia fragilis / brittle pricklypear

    • smallest pricklypear cactus; potato-shaped pads
    • pads separate with lightest bump
    • seldom flowers or fruits

  • Opuntia polyacantha / starvation cactus

    • yellow or peach, complex, many-petaled flowers
    • large globose, pointed buds with reddish scales
    • cactus pads with long or short spines and nasty glochids

  • Oxytropis sericea / white-point vetch

    • white "pea" flowers in clusters of up to 25
    • banner petal white with purple/blue veins
    • hairy, pinnately compound leaves, all basal
    • disturbed areas, especially exposed to cold, drought, high light etc.
    • pretty, but toxic to grazing animals

  • Packera cana / woolly groundsel

    • yellow, daisy-like blossoms with 8-13 ray florets ("petals")
    • golden, central disks
    • blossoms in flat-topped clusters of up to 15
    • mostly basal leaves - unlobed, hairy, ovate, up to 2 inches long
    • overall silvery appearance

  • Pedicularis contorta / curved-beak lousewort

    • alpine and subalpine habitats
    • fern-like leaves at base
    • tall, spikey inflorescence
    • white flowers with coiled upper beak and flat, 3-lobed lower lip

  • Pedicularis groenlandica / elephant head

    • flowers range from pink to purple or white
    • flowers each have a long, pointed, upward curving beak like an elephant's trunk and lateral lobes that look like elephant's ears
    • sharply-toothed fernlike leaves
    • wet environments in late June, early July

  • Phacelia hastata / silverleaf scorpionweed

    • flowers - dull white-ish/purple-ish, numerous in short, compact, coiled clusters
    • stamens extend well past petals
    • leaves - basal with prominent veins; usually covered with silvery hairs; usually entire
    • multiple flowering stems on a single plant
    • in a variety of habitats

  • Physaria spp / twinpods

    • yet another very small yellow crucifer/brassica
    • densely hairy leaves, tapering to a petiole
    • bloom in early spring on minimal soil in rocky places
    • fruit characteristics TBPL

Showing 37–48 of 66 results