Rocky Mountain Wildflowers — wildflower identification

Recently Bernie and I joined a Colorado Native Plant Society group for an informative outing at Mount Evans. We began our trek at the Mt. Goliath trailhead at 12,100 feet and followed it downward through the Bristlecone area of Mount Evans along the Walter Pesman trail. Many of the flowers we discovered were tiny, ¼ inch or less as our altitude was comparable to northern Canada’s tundra or to the Arctic Circle. We marveled at how these plants grow in such a harsh environment and learned some of their survival secrets. Along the steep rocky trail we spotted the following...

This week my husband and I drove into Buckskin Gulch in the Mosquito Range of South Park, Colorado. The mountains were still covered with winter’s snows but along the roadside and in the meadows, wildflowers were beginning to add color to the landscape. Sky Pilot, Alpine Sandwort, Alp Lily, Chickweed, Old Man of the Mountain, Alpine Phlox and Wallflower were some of the notable flowers growing among the grasses, rocks and around the Bristlecone Pines at 11,500 feet.        Bristlecone and Wallflowers The Wallflowers especially were putting on a show. Bright yellow clumps were springing up everywhere, but what...

      One early-blooming beauty is hard to find and endangered by collectors in the Colorado Rockies. If one has a keen eye and a little luck, he or she just might spot a Fairy Slipper or Calypso Orchid growing in shaded forests among leaf litter on the forest floor. This tiny exotic plant, Calypso bulbosa, is a member of the Orchid Family and has 3 slender pink petal-like sepals, 2 small petals, and one bulb-like petal that forms the slipper shape. A single leaf appears before the blossom appears and remains until the flower goes to seed. Plants grow from...

Here are some excerpts from a review for Rocky Mountain Wildflowers Field Guide that appeared in "The Mountain Mail"---Salida, CO--- Friday, March 14, 2014. Review by Dr Arlene Shovald <writerarlene@optimum.net>  It won’t be long before Rocky Mountain wildflowers are back, and for those who enjoy the outdoors, A South Park couple has compiled a Field Guide to identify many of the blossoms you might encounter. Linda S. Nagy is the author of the recently published "Rocky Mountain Wildflowers Field Guide," with photographs by her husband, Bernie Nagy.            Linda edited Bernie’s previous award-winning coffee table  books, “Colorado’s South Park – High Country Paradise,” “South Park,...