Cryptantha thyrsiflora Although it looks softly inviting, this plant’s covering of fine hairs is more bristle than fuzz. If you yield to the temptation to touch one, you’ll only do so once, at least on purpose: the experience is closer to stinging nettle than velvety lamb’s ear. For that reason, I’m not keen on them…
Physocarpus monogynus As charming as this flowering shrub is, you’d think I would have learned its name long ago, but I didn’t look it up until last year. “Ninebark” comes from the belief that the shrub’s shredding bark consisted of nine layers. Near the house, they are low bushes under the pines, but I’ve seen…
This was a rare treat; I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this cool-looking little plant before. The plants are parasitic, and this one is most likely dependent on the fringed sage (Artemisia frigida) you see growing at the base (silvery green foliage around the pink stems). For scale, the cluster was no more than four…
My field guide gives the common name as “Common Harebell,” but in my opinion there’s nothing common about them (okay, other than that they’re common (as in frequently seen, particularly this summer)). Pretty, pretty, pretty: And this year, more than I’ve ever noticed before, growing in dense clumps… …with more to come. Campanula rotundifolia
Sedum lanceolatum I tend to think of this bunchy upright succulent as a loner, but right now I’m seeing crops of stonecrops:
Another one of those large flower groups that prove troublesome to those of us who haven’t learned to key out plants. These are some of the first flowers we see in spring, but like so many of the native plants, they know how to take advantage of precipitation; our May and early June snowstorms encouraged…
If you’re new to Between Urban and Wild or haven’t stopped by in a while, we’re having a terrific wildflower year in this part of central Colorado. I’m spending July blogging the bloom: posting a photo a day of a plant that’s flowering this month. My rules are: native plants, all photographed in July, and…
Linum lewisii
I’ve been using the term “wildflowers,” but I’m including flowering plants more broadly in my project. Rubus parviflorus 7/8: Nope. More likely Boulder Raspberry, Oreobatus deliciosus. They’re almost finished flowering now, with just a few scattered flowers on the bushes, but a month or so ago the thimbleberry shrubs were thick with these fluttery pure-white blooms.…
This white form of locoweed tends to bloom early. Most of it has set set seed in our area already, but those plants still flowering are popular. Oxytropis sericea Same bumblebee here (it worked over a cluster of plants quite thoroughly while I watched), in a picture that shows the sage-gray plant.