Wildflower Walks

Elegant camas
Zigadenus elegans
Description: Bowl-shaped flowers three-quarters of an inch wide consists of six cream or greenish-white, petal-like segments with a greenish gland at base. Blossoms cluster atop stem 6 to 28 inches tall with 6- to 12-inch-long grass-like leaves growing from base. Grows in mountain meadows, rocky slopes and forests. Blooms June to August.
Recently seen: [...]

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Mountain pasqueflower
Pulsatilla occidentalis
Description: Five to eight white or cream-colored sepals and many yellow stamens form flower is 1 1/4 to 2 inches wide. Stands on hairy stem 8 to 24 inches tall with finely divided leaves 1 1/2 to 3 inches wide at base and below flower. Blooms May to September. Grows on mountain [...]

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If you missed out on the glacier lily bloom around Missoula in mid-May, now is the perfect time to catch it up higher.
These small, yellow canopies can be found carpeting mountain meadows in the Swan Range’s Jewel Basin and in Glacier National Park.
The picture above was taken near Picnic Lakes in the Jewel Basin, which [...]

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Pinedrops
Pterospora andromedea
Description: Bell-shaped whitish flowers one-quarter to three-eighths of an inch wide hang downward from sticky, purplish brown stems 1 to 4 feet tall. Leaves are narrow scales on lower stem. Grows in medium-moist to dry soil with decaying plant material under coniferous stands. Blooms late June to August. (“Peterson Field Guides’ Rocky Mountain Wildflowers,” [...]

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After spending a good portion of the past four months training for the Missoula Marathon, I’m looking forward to slowing down and heading for the hills.
I really enjoy running, but feel like I haven’t been getting out into the mountains enough to support this blog.
I’ve found plenty of flowers around town – many of them [...]

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Missoulian reporter Michael Moore recently took a hike up to Ch-paa-qn, the pinnacle that “shines” northwest of town, where he found lots of views and lots of beargrass.
Here’s an excerpt:
The best thing that Ch-paa-qn had going for it on the Fourth was the beargrass. It’s everywhere, in sweeping cream spikes that appear like gleaming, incandescent [...]

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Beargrass
Xerophyllum tenax
Description: A cluster of small cream- to white-colored flowers on a stem 2 to 3 feet tall. Grows from a large tuft of sharp-edged grasslike leaves at the base. Grows in open woods and slopes, and alpine meadows. Blooms June to September. (“Peterson Field Guides’ Rocky Mountain Wildflowers,” by John J. Craighead, Frank C. [...]

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The Glacier National Park Fund is looking for a few friends to go on Friday hikes:
Glacier group plans Friday hikes
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian
WEST GLACIER – It’s not like you need another excuse to skip work on Fridays, what with the summer sun shining and all, but here’s one anyway.
The staff at the Glacier [...]

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Wild licorice
Glycyrrhiza lepidota
Description: Greenish-white flowers 1/2-inch long form dense clusters on a shrub 1 to 3 feet tall. Leaves are made up of 11 to 19 lance-shaped leaflets up to 1 inch long. Blooms from June to early August. Grows in patches on cultivated land and in prairies, river bottoms and moist mountain draws. (“Peterson [...]

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