Part 7

Numerous violet-blue flowers, each about ½ inch across, of 5 rounded corolla lobes joining in a funnel-like tube, are clustered into a head about 2½ inches in diameter, which nods slightly on its erect stem. Plants are about 8 inches high, with numerous bright-green, pinnate leaves cut into many narrow leaflets. The leaves may be erect or may interweave somewhat at the base of a close group of several plants. Grows in rocky places, alpine zone. Blooms late June-early July.

The sky pilot, growing among rocks up where the sky seems very near, reflects its blue and so is supposed to direct our thoughts upward. This same feeling is embodied in the name of another species of Polemonium, Jacobs ladder, Polemonium pulcherrimum, the staggered leaves of which may represent the steps by which we climb. Sky pilot seems very much affected by the particular season. In a dry summer, it is straggly and manages to produce only a few blooms of faded blue. In a good year, large clumps of sturdy erect plants make patches of deep color, accented by their golden stamens. The leaves have a strong, offensive odor, but the flowers are honey sweet.

Phlox Family Scarlet Gilia, Gilia aggregata, SPRENG.

Individual flower, 1½ inches long, is formed of a slender trumpet-like, bright-scarlet (sometimes coral pink) corolla flaring at the mouth into 5 narrow lobes. Numerous flowers attached by short pedicels, are carried in small groups along one side of the green stem. Plant is about 18-24 inches tall, usually of one main stem, with sometimes a few branches. Leaves are deeply cut into thin linear subdivisions, usually curved. Grows in plains and foothills zones. Blooms June-August.

In many otherwise barren areas, the red gilia or sky rocket plant spreads its blaze of color in large patches or hangs, a single wand of bloom, over the edge of the trail. It keeps blooming through the summer, a few stragglers holding on till Labor Day. In early September we have found them in the Wet Mountain Valley brightening the brown of the autumn grasses. A white species, Gilia attenuata, tends to grow at lower elevations—the red higher in the foothills. The pale pink and coral plants are probably hybrids.

Figwort Family Indian Paintbrush, Castilleja integra, GRAY

The true flowers are slender, two-lipped tubes of pale or greenish color about 1 inch long. They are surrounded and often completely hidden by the conspicuous, brick-red, modified leaves (bracts) which form a flower-like cluster at the upper ends of the stems. The bract colors in this species vary considerably through several shades of red. Plant is 8-15 inches tall composed of several leafy stems, very tough and woody at their lower ends, rising from a woody root crown. Grows in foothills and higher plains, extending upward through montane zone. Blooms June-July.

In the early summer, this spectacular plant may be seen in the prairie stretches along the highway between Denver and Colorado Springs—or a bit later in the season—literally carpeting the drier areas of South Park. In higher altitudes, particularly in the well-watered vales of Engelmann Spruce, there are other species with bracts of brilliant shades of rose and maroon. In those same high gardens and on above timberline there is a yellow paintbrush. The fortunate flower hunter may even be rewarded by a yellow one tipped with red—or red edged with yellow.

Figwort Family Penstemon, Penstemon unilateralis, RYDB.

Individual flower is about ½ inch wide and somewhat longer, formed of a bell-shaped, lavender-blue corolla which flares at its mouth into 5 lobes separated into two groups. Numerous flowers, in groups of 3 or more, are closely arranged along one side of the top half of each stem, several stems rising from a root crown. Plant is 2 feet or more tall, with narrow tapering leaves, opposite each other in pairs. Grows in foothills and montane zones. Blooms late June-July.

This is but one of twenty or more species of Penstemon found in Colorado. Some, such as Penstemon angustifolius, with its azure blue flowers, grow on the plains. A few are dwarf species of the sub-alpine zone such as Penstemon harbourii. Every zone and every section has its quota, and they range in color through all shades of lavender, blue, purple, and even red. In details of flower structure, as well as in size, they vary considerably. All of them, however, have a tubular corolla of some shape, terminating in five lobes, divided into two groups, giving them a two-lipped appearance. From this their relationship to garden snapdragons is apparent. In the penstemons, also, the topmost of their five stamens is sterile and often tipped with a little brush of hairs. This gives them the name of beardstongue.

Composite Family Gaillardia, Gaillardia aristata, PURSH

Flower head, 3 inches or more across, is formed of a central red disk made up of many minute tubular flowers (florets), surrounded by an outer circle of long flat golden rays cleft at tips into 3 teeth. Plants are 2 feet or more high of several rough stems usually erect, but sometimes contorted. The dark green leaves are lance-shaped and rough. Grows in foothills. Blooms June-July.

Do you have one just like this in your garden? Cultivation has changed the gaillardia less than it has most native plants. It was born a handsome, showy flower. There is charm in its notched rays and in the way the red of the central disk flowers runs outward into the gold of the rays, as though the painter had been careless with his brush and lavish with his colors. It grows far beyond the limits of Colorado. In the rough breaks of the Montana hills several separate plants will spread out and interweave as a colorful mass, giving it there the name “blanket-flower.”

Composite Family Rabbit Brush, Chrysothamnus nauseosus, H. AND C.

Individual flower heads are about ¼ inch across and double that in length, each formed of a dozen or more tubular bright gold florets closely compressed at their bases into a green involucre. Numerous such heads are clustered loosely together into round-topped groups (cymes) at the ends of stems and branches. Plant is a wide-branching, woody shrub 2-4 feet high with small, green-gray, linear leaves. Grows on dry plains and lower foothills, especially common in western Colorado. Blooms September-October.

Most of the better known composites have spreading rays—each of which is really a flower, though usually sterile—surrounding a disc of less conspicuous tubular flowers, these latter being normally the fertile ones. Sunflowers are familiar examples. Throughout some genera of this great family, and in various species of additional genera, the rays are totally absent. Rabbit brush is one of the composites whose flower heads have no rays. They are showy only because so many of them cluster together, and because each small flower contributes a speck of bright gold. They are distinctly plants of desert lands, and in the fall season each big clump is a perfect mound of color. As winter nears, the color pales and fades, though flowers hang on a long time. Rabbit brush is not a sagebrush, even though both grow on the same dry plains and both are members of the composite family.

Composite Family Easter Daisy, Townsendia sericea, HOOK.

Flower heads, 2 inches across, are formed of about 30 white rays, slightly striated and indented at the tips, surrounding a disc, about ¾ inch in diameter, of numerous tubular gold-colored florets. Plant is about 3 inches high and carries one or several flower heads right on the top of a spreading tough root crown from which also rise numerous, narrow, linear leaves about 2-3 inches long. Grows on grassy plains, and foothills. Blooms April-May.

These are among the very earliest of the plains flowers. Their typical occurrence is as isolated plants, one here and one there between grass turfs in areas of rather tight prairie sod. They are so low and compact that they are not easy to find, even though their beauty well justifies the search. Spring has come when Easter daisies are out, even though the plains are still clad in winter gray with only a faint suggestion that in time the range will be green. Several other members of this daisylike genus are found in the foothills and plains. One of the commoner of these, Townsendia eximia, is easily distinguished by its short spreading branches which carry a few leaves.

Composite Family Showy Fleabane, Erigeron speciosus, C. FONG

Flower head, 1½ inches across, is composed of about 200 narrow rays of brilliant lavender color, surrounding a button-like center ½ inch in diameter, of numerous, bright-gold, tubular florets packed closely together. Plant is 1½ to 3 feet high, freely branching, with numerous flower heads; leaves oblong or oval 2-3 inches long. Grows in shady places, rich moist soil, montane and sub-alpine zones. Blooms late July-September.

As the season advances, these aster-like flowers become the most conspicuous color notes in our high-altitude aspen groves. They come after early flowers are gone and bloom with a profusion unknown to most shade-loving plants. Before they too are gone a leaf here and there on the geranium plants in these same places will have turned bright red; on the ground, ivory colored puff-balls will be ready to discharge their clouds of brown spores, and the very first of the aspen leaves will have turned yellow and be drifting down. Showy fleabanes may linger to catch the first fall snows. Another of the many members of this genus, Erigeron trifidus, grows on the plains and brings out its small white blossoms in late April when it may catch the last spring snows.

Composite Family Alpine Sunflower, Hymenoxys grandiflora, PARKER

Flower head is 3 to 4 inches across, the central disk, an inch in diameter, made up of over a hundred tiny, tubular, golden florets, surrounded by about 30 bright yellow rays which are flat and notched at the outer end. Plant is 5 to 15 inches tall of one or several woolly stems, with leaves divided into several narrow lobes. Grows on alpine slopes. June-July.

This woolly-stemmed, dwarf sunflower, sometimes called old-man-of-the-mountains, or sun-god, is a startling surprise for the newcomer to our above-timberline tundras. One expects smaller more timid flowers here, and so at first the big bright faces of these plants seem out of place. Then we come to love them for their gay defiance of tough growing conditions and think of them as the proper guardians of high windy places. Whole colonies of them will be found with all the flower heads faced in the same direction. This will be a direction from which they receive strong light, and is a form of heliotropism. The stems, however, do not twist through a full half circle each day to follow the sun.

Composite Family Thistle, Circium undulatum, SPRENG.

Flower heads, 1½ to 2 inches broad, are solitary at the ends of stems and branches, and made up of numerous (100 or more) rose-colored, tubular florets fluffing out widely at their tops and grouped tightly together at their bases into an involucre made of many little, overlapping green bracts. Plant is about 3 feet tall with gray-green deeply cut leaves; stem and leaf ribs armed with prickles. Grows on plains, extending into foothills. Blooms May-September.