Wildflower Walks

I’ve received a few wildflower reports from readers in Missoula and beyond recently.
“Yellow bells, shooting stars and two other flowers I’ll have to research are in the unkept city park below Whitaker Drive,” Paula Hoffmann wrote in a comment. And “the buttercups are still going strong!”
However, she noted, “knapweed and leafy spurge are [...]

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After a recent prescribed burn at the Pattee Canyon National Recreation Area, the annual arrival of glacier lilies is under way.
While it looks to be a pretty good bloom, it’s hard to say if it’s better because of the fire.
Plenty of green glacier lily leaves are sprouting from scorched areas in Crazy Canyon, and some [...]

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The Clark Fork Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society has a couple of outings planned this month.
This Saturday, the group will go in search of Steer’s Head, a cousin of Bleeding Heart, in the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area. U.S. Forest Service ecologist Mike Young will lead the eight-mile round-trip trek from the main Rattlesnake [...]

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After eight episodes about fauna big and small, the Discovery Channel’s “Life” series arrives at flora with its “Plants” episode on Sunday.
Check out the episode page for videos – including this behind-the-scenes clip – a quiz, plant profiles and a photo gallery. Also, see the making of a time-lapse English woodland bloom scene in this [...]

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There’s a little bit of wildflower science coming off the slopes of Missoula’s Mount Jumbo.
A recent study suggests that plants there are flowering earlier, and temperature and snowfall may have something to do with it.
The study, co-authored by Peter Lesica of the University of Montana’s Division of Biological Sciences, will appear in the Journal of [...]

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OK, that’s an exaggeration – the Montana state flower is still here, but an upcoming seminar will look at why it’s getting harder to find.
The event is at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 24, in the Stevensville School multipurpose room.
The seminar will be chaired by John Stroud and will discuss the history of the bitterroot, the [...]

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