Western Wildflowers Rise for Easter

Long hairs on an unopened pasqueflower bud yesterday on the east front 

Pasqueflower is Montana's first dash of springtime color dotting the monochrome fields of winter. This lavender flower's early rise is nicely illustrated by a variety of cold-weather names and adaptations. By Easter this plant of many names can be found blooming along the lower slopes while snow still flies and melts intermittently.

In the mid-1700's Carl Linnaeus gave this plant the Latin name, "Anemone patens" from a specimen collected by English botanist William Hooker. Anemos is the Latin word for wind and patens means spreading. At about the same time another English botanist, Philip Miller, gave it the Latin name, "Pulsatilla patens." Pulsatilla is from the Latin word for pulsing or striking, which may have referred to blood from the sacrificial lambs of Passover. So his name might mean Passover flower struck (spread) by wind.

If you know any botanists, then you might not be surprised that names for this plant just kept sprouting. The German-American botanist Frederick Pursh studied a specimen of this plant that was collected by Lewis and Clark and, in 1814, named it "Clematis hirsutissima." Clematis is from the Greek word klema, which means to break off, possibly referring to the seeds breaking off in the wind. Hirsutissima is a Latin superlative meaning covered with hair. Thus, breaking off hairy plant.

Four years later, the English botanist Thomas Nuttall moved the genus back to Anemone and called this plant "Anemone ludoviciana," which means wind flower from the Louisiana Territory - that massive chunk of western land that included modern-day Montana. Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle soon changed the name to "Anemone Nuttalliana," or Nuttall's wind flower, and this was changed again in 1825 to Nuttall's pulsing flower, or "Pulsatilla Nuttalliana," by German botanist Christian Sprengel. In 1867, American botanist Asa Gray reclassified Hooker's original specimen as a distinct variety of this plant, naming it "Anemone patens var. Nuttalliana." Then in 1900 the American botanist Amos Arthur Heller switched the genus name again, to "Pulsatilla ludoviciana," or Louisiana Territory flower that blooms at Passover.

Modern analysis of our earliest spring wildflower sent us back to the start, but it hasn't ended the phylogenetic competition. In 1994 the Linnaean Plant Name Typification Project designated the name as "Anemone patens Linnaeus," and The Flora of North America (v. 3, 1997) claims that Linnaeus' designation is the correct name. But the 2011 North American Plant Atlas lists this plant as "Pulsatilla patens," claiming that this name super-cedes the one given by Linnaeus. Competing Latin names like these are sometimes referred to as scientific synonyms. So round and round we go, like winter into spring.

This plant also has many common names, including prairie crocus (it's not a crocus), prairie smoke, wind tulip and April fool. Blackfeet call it kippiaapi (related to kipitaaakii, or old woman, possibly because of the white hair of both). The first half of the name, pasqueflower, is from the Hebrew word, paschal, which means relating to Passover. This Easter's pasqueflower crop is starting to show up between lingering patches of winter snow and regular dustings by spring flurries. Yesterday I found a small number of starts and blooms on a few dry, rocky exposures along the east slope south of Saint Mary. The flowers were short and unopened, but that might just be because it was cloudy. Pasqueflowers close for the night and open for the sun, which they tend to follow across the sky like sunflowers. While open, the curved sepals reflect sunlight inward and raise the flower temperature by as much as 18F (10C), helping to speed up the development of pollen and seeds during springtime's cool temperatures.

Early-season shortness helps counter springtime winds, as does a covering of many hairs. Pasqueflower's hairy surface serves several other purposes as well. They're thought to be an irritant that discourages browsing by animals. The hairs also work as a thermal blanket in two ways. Frost forms out on the hairy tips, away from the more delicate plant parts. And the hairy surface also traps air like a down coat, creating a micro-climate that is slightly warmer that the surrounding air when the sun isn't shining.

As if irritating hairs weren't deterrent enough, pasqueflower foliage also contains a blistering agent that affects the mouth and intestinal linings (mucus membranes) of any mammal that tries to eat it. It's probably a good idea to have a double line of defense when you are the first green plant seen in spring by hungry herbivores. As the flowers mature, their styles elongate into 1.5" (3.8 cm) long plumes with a small seed on one end. While the flowers hug the ground, the plant stems elongate through spring to lift the feathery seeds of summer into the wind. A gusty "strike" sends the seeds on their way to start another generation of cold-weather flowers whose name varies, depending on who you ask and where you are.

Beyond the bloom: The Rural Municipality of Lansdowne, in Manitoba, is the proud home of the world's largest prairie crocus monument, located in Arden (population 150). Arden's tourism committee puts on a pasqueflower photography competition each spring, and you can see past winners here. There's also a native prairie grassland site north of Arden where thousands of native prairie crocuses bloom every April. 

Update to the May Wildflower Update

White and yellow forms of Glacier Lily, growing together along Glacier Park's Inside North Fork Road

Western Trillium range of color
from lavender to white

The Western Montana wildflowers are moving right along. My week-old report from the east side of the Continental Divide is already out of date, and some west side wildflowers are peaking now.

Shooting Stars

I returned to the east front just a couple of days ago, and the Few-flowered Shooting Stars were finally popping off in a few scattered clusters south of Saint Mary. Pasqueflowers are holding strong and filling in some of the previously empty hillsides, where trees give way to grass. The handsome Western Trillium are starting to make a respectable showing for their kind in shaded patches here and there. And the Glacier Lilies are finally starting to blanket the shade beneath the stunted aspen groves, especially just north of East Glacier.

Back here on the west side of the divide, our wildflowers are several weeks ahead of the east-siders. Our Glacier Lilies are really putting on a show along the Inside North Fork Road. North of Quartz Creek, all of the Glacier Lilies are yellow, and fading. But in the shaded, forested area between Quartz Creek and Logging Creek, yellow and white forms are growing side-by-side. This localized patch of white Glacier Lilies is a loosely-held secret among some of the local botanists - don't tell anyone.

Closer to Logging Creek, the white and yellow lilies are interspersed with a good number of Western Trillium. And these Trillium blooms run the gamut from pure white to deep lavender, all mixed into in the same locations. The area's shady and still quite wet, so these yellow, white and lavender wildflowers are just now peaking and should be showy for the next week or two. As a west-side bonus, there are small clusters of Fairy Slipper Orchids hidden here and there in the same area - if you look closely. That's why most of my bluejeans have green-stained knees.

Seven-spotted ladybug on Pasqueflower

May's Flower Moon

Arrow-leaved Balsamroot this week on Wild Horse Island, in Flathead Lake

Different cultures use different names to describe their monthly full moons. A western-Montana-mountain-throwback culture might mumble something about May's "Cloudy Moon," (bottom) and mutter under their breath about June's "Cold Rain Moon." But no, some old farmers somewhere else named this month's full moon in the genteel image of, "Flower Moon," and that's the moniker that stuck.

Pasqueflowers near Chief Mountain

Not that our wildflowers mind all the moisture and the slowly-warming soil. May is the month that color returns, in modest blushes at first, to the warmer and drier grasslands and rolling hills in these parts.

Spring is a subtle beauty on the east side of the divide. Pale, purple Pasqueflower is one of our earliest blooms. They still cover the treeless hillsides around Duck Lake and Chief Mountain Road, and north and south of there as well. (As a bonus smile-maker, there are also a good number of little colts and fillies grazing among the wildflowers in that area.)

Few-seeded Draba and pastel Rocky Mountain Douglasia

The hilly, windy two-lane between Saint Mary and Cutbank Creek is my favorite place to find spring Shooting Stars. They're absent right now - did I miss them? On west and south sides of those hills, pastel patches of Douglasia (right) more than make up for it. Smaller patches of Few-seeded Draba (of the mustard family) make for an eye-pleasing, complimentary color pallet.

Over on the west side, the Trillium (below) are finally up in the cedar shadows along the south side of Fish Creek. I counted several hundred of them this week, all white, as none of the blooms are old enough to start turning the mature crimson of their later days. I haven't crossed paths with many Glacier Lillies yet, probably because I haven't been up in the snow much, but we have seen a few scattered individuals in the damp forests around Thompson Lakes.

Fresh Trillium flower near Fish Creek

Down on the dry, windblown slopes of Wild Horse Island, where thousands of Bitterroot grow, none of these pink and white state flowers have emerged yet. But you won't miss them because the same slopes are currently carpeted with countless bright yellow, sun-loving Arrow-leaved Balsamroot (top photo). Those on the south-facing slopes are just about peaked, while those covering the north-facing slopes are just now coming into their own. The next two weeks will be golden out there. This week's weather forecast? Rain and clouds, of course.

Maybe all of these wet days are worth it after all.

May's full "Flower Moon" rises through thick clouds above Swan Peak

The Ol' Prairie Crocus

A pentet of springtime pasqueflowers

Pasqueflower (Anemone patens) is a common sight in Montana's windy, springtime prairies. It's often the first flower to bloom each spring, and most of them have turned to seed before the other native plants even dare to open their delicate flowers. The pretty purple parts are actually sepals - modified leaves - and the real flower parts are yellow. Pasqueflower goes by a number of common names, mostly relating to its timing or habitat. You're just as likely to hear someone call this plant a prairie crocus, meadow anemone, wind flower or Easter flower.

Identifying the Crocus: If you're like me and often forget to pack your guidebooks when you head outdoors, then don't worry - now there's an app for that. My botanist friend, Shannon, has just released a shiny new phone/tablet/computer application called, "Glacier Wildflowers." The app is a portable version of the book, "Wildflowers of Glacier National Park," that Shannon published in 2010 with Peter Lesica.

There's a smaller free version of the app and a larger version that includes over 250 wildflowers, grasses, shrubs, and trees. You can search by plant type, flower color, fruit shape, leaf shape, leaf arrangement, leaf texture, and plant size! The paid version only costs a measly five bucks, and part of the proceeds are donated to the Glacier National Park Conservancy. I've got it. You need it.