Thursday, June 17, 2010

Wildflowers at Craters of the Moon National Monument

We are in Idaho and visited an amazing place a few days ago: Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho, a park featuring volcanic rock formations, lava, and cinders. It was an awe-inspiring landscape. But I was also amazed by the wildflowers flourishing in the cinders and the lava. If you are a pioneer girl, please help me identify these plants of the sagebrush steppe!

Dwarf Buckwheat

Dwarf Purple Monkeyflower

Bitterbrush

Cinquefoil


Threadleaf Fleabane with Cinquefoil


Gray's Desert Parsley

Common Larkspur


Lupine

A Mystery Flower! Do you know what it is?

4 comments:

Sandy said...

I think you are right about lupin

the last one looks like Fireweed at the end of flowering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilobium_angustifolium
It is possible that both of those are a bit harder to recognise because they are a bit more scraggley...possibly the growing conditions?

I didn't realise the names of some of the other flowers I recognised. The fleabane we have abundantly and call them daisies.
Sandy in the UK

Erin said...

I love your flower captures! The one that looks like lupine...it also looks a little like the penstemon family...it is quite an extensive plant species, and has the characteristic flowers like lupine or snapdragons, with the same openings...what do you think??

~Erin

Betsy said...

the first one is bitterbrush, it is blooming right now here in Sun Valley

the second one you question is definitely a lupine (the leaves are the give away)

and the third ???? not enough information.... probably not fire weed as it is still early for that ...

An excellent resource Idaho Mountain Wildflowers by A. Scott Earle

Anonymous said...

Last one is definitely not fireweed. It's some sort of rockcress (Arabis sp.) in the mustard family.