Wildflower Walks

The Missoula Ranger District is planning prescribed fires at Pattee Canyon and Blue Mountain, possibly starting today, to “reduce surface fuel concentrations, promote ponderosa pine regeneration and rejuvenate forest floor vegetation.”
I’ll be interested to see the effects of the burns on wildflower blooms this spring and summer, particularly in Pattee Canyon. The area being treated [...]

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I saw my first buttercup in bloom this year on March 15 at Blue Mountain – but that wasn’t the earliest sighting around Missoula. Blog reader Paul Alaback wrote in an e-mail that they were out March 12 on Mount Sentinel, March 6 on Mount Jumbo and March 2 in the North Hills.
Alaback would know; [...]

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The bluebirds and robins are flying about, and buttercups are on the verge of bursting open at Missoula’s Blue Mountain National Recreation Area. Spring is nearly here, and with it I return to blogging at a freshened-up WildflowerWalks.com.
While we wait for the wildflowers, here’s a bit of eye candy from the upcoming “Life” series by [...]

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Blanketflower
Gaillardia aristata
Description: Flower is 2 to 3 inches wide with orange to purplish-red diskflowers surrounded by yellow rayflowers. Stands on a stem 8 to 30 inches tall with lance-shaped leaves up to 6 inches long growing from lower part of stem. Blooms June to early August in medium-dry to moist soil in open areas and [...]

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While arrowleaf balsamroot has been out for a while, a smaller member of the aster family is beginning to bloom on the forest floor – arnica.
Find this plant growing at the Blue Mountain and Pattee Canyon national recreation areas, and on Evaro Hill. Look for the yellow rayflowers atop stems up to 2 feet tall [...]

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Prairie smoke – aka old man’s whiskers – is out around the Missoula Valley now.
Find it in abundance at the Blue Mountain National Recreation Area, especially on the lower hills just before you get into the shade of the pine trees. Look for prairie smoke’s frilly leaves and dangling blossoms. The flower’s petals run yellow [...]

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Work to expand and improve the main trailhead at Blue Mountain National Recreation area, on the southwest side of Missoula, continues.
U.S. Forest Service officials expect to be finished by June 1.
For more information, click here.
Justin Grigg

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A reminder: The main Blue Mountain National Recreation Area trailhead will be shut down for about three weeks starting Monday while the U.S. Forest Service’s Missoula Ranger District completes an expansion project there.
According to a news release, the trailhead is expected to reopen May 15.
The trailhead expansion will increase parking capacity, provide equestrian facilities and [...]

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Pasqueflowers started blooming at the Blue Mountain National Recreation Area over the weekend. Find them among the grass and duff as you enter the trees above the lower hills.
This is one of my favorite early spring flowers because of its size and color. The cup-shaped, purple flower is about 1 to 2 inches across and [...]

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Spring is finally here, and so are the first wildflowers of the season.
At Blue Mountain, the buttercups and yellowbells are going strong. You’ll also shooting stars just starting. And pasqueflowers are rising from the pine needles, getting ready to open.
On Waterworks Hill, look for pink mats of Rocky Mountain Douglasia. The green tendrils of bitterroots [...]

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