Plants in the Valley

Showing 181–192 of 327 results

  • Malva neglecta / cheeseweed

    • leaves look like grocery store geraniums (Pelargonium)
    • flowers are small, pink-ish and often buried in the foliage
    • fruits are small (ca. 1/2 in) and round

  • 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

  • Medicago sativa / alfalfa

    • escaped forage plant
    • bright purple flowers in dense clusters
    • pea-like flowers with broad upper petal, 2 small laterals, keel
    • compound leaves with 3 leaflets, the central one extended on a short stalk
    • disturbed sites - roadsides, full sun

  • Melilotus spp / sweetclover

    • yellow or white, floppy, tubular flowers in long-ish clusters (racemes)
    • 3 small, pointy leaflets with petioles
    • rangy, unkempt branching
    • roadsides, waste places and sometimes in fields, grasslands

  • Mentha canadensis / American cornmint

    • crushed leaves smell like peppermint
    • clusters of teeny white-blue-pink flowers in the axils of stem leaves
    • square stems, lance-shaped leaves
    • shaded, moist areas
    • may form large clones

  • Mertensia ciliata / mountain bluebells

    • taller than others bluebells - up to four feet
    • often forms dense stands by streams and seeps
    • flowers dark blue, bell-shaped, held on one side of stem
    • leaves blue-green, pointed, with prominent veins, marginal pointy hairs

  • Mertensia oblongifolia / sagebrush bluebell

    • bright blue-to-purplish flowers, hanging and downward facing
    • narrow tube that flares abruptly to bell
    • blooms in very early spring, soon after snow-melt
    • usually associated with sagebrush

  • Micranthes odontoloma / brook saxifrage

    • streamsides (or in the streams) especially at higher elevations
    • white petals with beautiful red center
    • yellow/green spots on the petals
    • multiple drooping flowers on foot-long, leafless stems

  • Microsteris gracilis / slender phlox

    • everything about it is teeny
    • white or pink, 5-petal flowers ca. 2 mm diameter
    • exposed, in early spring (ephemeral)

  • Myosotis asiatica / forget-me-not

    • azure blue to violet to white flowers - very small
    • yellow ring around the center of each flower, like a doughnut
    • usually many flowers in an inflorescence
    • flowers initially in compact clusters, more spread out later in season
    • leaves and stems a bit hairy

  • Nasturtium officinale / watercress

    • emergent aquatic in slow-ish flowing steams
    • four petaled white flowers in clusters
    • thick, shiny leaves
    • often in dense colonies

  • Neottia banksiana / northwestern twayblade

    • orchid - with two stem-clasping leaves halfway up the stem
    • moist, dim understory habitat, in clonal patches
    • very small green orchid flower - 5 sickle-shaped petals and sepals, 1 broader green labellum (lip)
    • small, insignificant and easily overlooked

Showing 181–192 of 327 results