winter botany

Showing 1–12 of 30 results

  • Abies lasiocarpa / subalpine fir

    • narrow, tall, sharply tipped trees
    • cones purple and erect; disintegrate in the fall
    • needles flattened, soft and blunt tipped, brushed upward
    • needles sessile - no petioles or pegs
    • leaf (needle) scars round

  • Amaranthus retroflexus / pigweed

    • green bottle-brush inflorescence
    • accomplished weed on disturbed sites (including road & driveway cracks)
    • often in gardens, farm fields (edges), roadsides

  • Antennaria spp. / pussytoes

    • small clusters of white flowers, often fringed with red
    • flowers look like a cat's toes, sort of
    • newest leaves silvery/hairy
    • exposed, in many different habitats

  • Artemisia tridentata / mountain big sagebrush

    • medium-sized grey-green shrub
    • highly aromatic
    • tall, spikey inflorescences with many clusters of invisible flowers
    • limited to drier habitats (not the Valley basin)

  • 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

  • Cercocarpus ledifolius / curl-leaf mountain mahogany

  • Chimaphila umbellata / pipsissewa

    • small herb/forb
    • shiny, toothed lance point leaves
    • half-inch, pink and white, upside down flowers
    • flowers in umbel like cluster
    • flowers with minimally visible style

  • 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

  • Cirsium vulgare / bull thistle

    • very nasty spines all over, including stems
    • purple flower head over pear/egg-shaped narrow, spiny bracts
    • fruits are thistle-downy
    • disturbed areas, but also forest gaps, stream sides and seeps

  • Eriogonom spp. / wild buckwheat

    • short, with small leaves close to the ground
    • leaves persistent in winter, green and red
    • blossoms - cute little buttons that look like dried flowers; long-lasting
    • inflorescence - umbel or compound umbel
    • may be white, cream, yellow, pink, red; changeable with age

  • Goodyera oblongifolia / western rattlesnake plantain

    • basal rosette of blue-green leaves with a white midvein
    • single, leafless inflorescence stem
    • greenish-white, stalkless flowers, often in a spiral
    • the flowers have a hood, a short, pouch-like lip, and 2 flaring sepals
    • usually found on the floor of coniferous forests

  • Hackelia spp. / stickseeds in general

    • very small blue flowers
    • inflorescence elongates with single flower at top
    • more and more branches through the season
    • nasty stickseed fruits mature below apex

Showing 1–12 of 30 results