This post features the earliest blooming wildflowers in our valley. They are coming and going fast! It is a good time to bone-up on our botany skills – looking closely at the identifying features of not just individual species, but also some common families: Parsley, Daisy, Mustard, Pea. It also points out some of the taxonomic challenges to ID. Take your time to look closely at the photos and review the text for key ID features and then go see if you can find the species in the wild.
It is hoped that once again we can appreciate the many ways plants support other creatures from bacteria and insects to mammals and birds. And that our wildflowers provide beauty and joy to all of us!
This information was gleaned by searching the internet using botanical names and referencing .org, .edu. and .gov, not .com or social media outlets. Some references are linked to the script.
Appreciation goes to Wikipedia and the many university, non-profit, and government researchers and educators who strive to help us understand our world.
First Up:
Several species emerge just as the snow melts. They use energy from small storage bulbs or corms underground to quickly sprout leaves and flowers. Over just a few weeks, fruits form, seeds are dispersed, and food is once again stored underground for the next year.
Steer’s-head – Dicentra uniflora – is quintessentially western in appearance with two outer petals curled up into horns and two more petals forming the head of what appears to be a steer. Look for rounded-lobed, compound leaves lying almost flat to the ground and then if lucky for the 3/4” nodding pinkish flowers. Plants come and go within 4-6 weeks.
The flowers are pollinated by bumblebees which can perch and pry open the petals to efficiently effect pollination. Details on how they do so are elusive.
The 3/4” fruits develop within 14-18 days. Ants chew through the fruits to get to the seeds. Ants are attracted by the highly nutritious fleshy elaiosome attached to the seed which they feed to their larvae. Then the ants dispose of the seed itself in an organic waste pile where it germinates. This form of seed dispersal is called myrmecochory. Buried seeds germinate much more readily than those on the soil surface.
Furthermore, Steer’s-head is the exclusive host plant of Clodius Parnassian Butterfly – Parnassius clodius. In early spring the larvae emerge from eggs nearby and start feeding on the sprouting plants for 2-3 weeks until the larvae pupate for 10 days to become butterflies. After mating rituals, the females lay their eggs near a dormant Steer’s-head—apparently they can detect the presence of plant corms resting underground with their feet. They lay their eggs nearby and the larvae develop within the eggs to emerge once snow melts again next year.
The diminutive Steer’s-heads support bees, ants, and butterflies! Much of the research on Parnassian butterfles has been here in Grand Teton National Park by Dr. Diane Debinski.
Turkey Peas – Orogenia linearifolia – are also hard-to find.
Pea-sized corms
produce 2-3” linear leaves and a quarter-sized umbel of white flowers touched with purple.
The fruits are often over looked for good reason – they are so small and we are diverted by other flowers coming! Turkey Peas are in the Parsley/Apiaceae Family (see below).
Spring Beauties – Claytonia lanceolata – are not quite so hard to find. They grow under light shade of pines and also in sagebrush. Look for two opposite linear leaves on the stem,
and wide-open white-to-pink flowers with 5 petals. Pink lines guide pollinators toward the yellow center where there are 5 stamens with pink pollen-bearing anthers and a single pistil with 3 stigmas curled outward. These early flowers serve a variety of spring pollinators. Spring Beauties are also called Mountain Potatoes: they are considered a tasty and important food plant for indigenous peoples. Portulacacea/Montiaceae.
Hood’s or Spiny Phlox – Phlox hoodii – are fragrant! The mounded plants look like patches of scattered snow. Unlike the plants discussed above which rise from starchy underground bulbs or corms, this species grows from a much-branching woody root crown which forms low, tight mounds rarely over 12” wide and a few of inches high. They often do well on rocky slopes.
Leaves are opposite, sharp, stiff-pointed with cobwebby hairs.
Flowers are swirled in bud, and petals unfurl into tubular flowers which flare at the top.
The fragrance attracts insects to the location, but only long-tongued species can perch and probe down into the tube for nectar and pollen. Butterflies, moths, and skippers are primary pollinators, along with perhaps long-tongued bees. Two other species of phlox will appear soon.
Pollination note: Flower fragrance lures in pollinators from afar, then flower color helps them zero in to the exact location, and finally the flower structure and rewards of nectar and/or pollen determine the compatibility of plant and pollinator. Think about walking down a street, smelling donuts down an ally, then seeing a bright sign at the door, and walking in to select your favorite donut.
Two species of native buttercups bloom early:
Most of us are cheered in early spring by the emergence of bright-yellow buttercups. We have two species to discern.
Sagebrush Buttercup – Ranunculus glaberrimus – usually has entire basal and upper leaves.
Roots are thin and fibrous:
Utah Buttercup – R. jovis –– has three-lobed lower leaves
and tuberous thick roots.
The high gloss and rich yellow of buttercups flowers is unique in the plant world. Petals have both structural and pigmentary components that produce and enhance their color, as do some bird feathers and insects; whereas, most flowers just have pigments. The morphology and physics are extremely complex, but basically buttercup petals have a unique combination of a single, smooth outer cell layer with two reflective surfaces, an air gap, a white starch layer, and carotenoid pigments. (reference).
Also, flowers track the sun and when the sun angle is high enough, they can flash UV light to lure in insects from far away, enhancing pollination. The wide-open flowers are appealing to bees, flies, and others. The flowers’ parabolic movements can capture warmth and hence speed up pollen formation and later seed formation.
Yellowbells – Fritillaria pudica – are sprinkled across sage flats especially along the inner park road. The yellow flowers nodding on 6-8” stems appeal to low-flying insect pollinators.
Yellowbells are in the Lily Family whose parts are in multiples of threes: 3 sepals and 3 petals that look the same and are thus called tepals, 6 anthers, and a 3-parted pistil that develops into a 3–parted dry fruit.
Upon pollination, the 6 yellow tepals change to orange.
This color change indicates to nearby pollinators that an individual flower has been pollinated signaling to pass it by—save energy. By pollinated plants retaining some color, they help continue to draw pollinators from a distance so that the remaining unpollinated plants in the colony have a greater opportunity for fertilization. This is termed ontogenetic color.
Within a few weeks plants will dry up and disappear. However, if pollinated, the Yellowbell forms a 3-parted-capsule which stands up straight. As it dries, it cracks open along three sutures and shakes out seeds upon the wind.
Wyoming Kittentails – Besseya/Synthris/Veronica wyomingensis – formerly in the Scrophulariaceae family now in Plantaginaceae, is a lovely, distinctive plant with a very confusing taxonomy.
Kittentails are worthy of a close look. The flower heads or inflorescence is comprised of dozens of tiny flowers. Individual flowers have 2 small green sepals and no petals. Flower color comes from two stamens: the blue filaments stretch up, and at their tip blue anthers swell and unfurl to release pollen. The individual flowers are nested into hairy bracts below. The result are fuzzy (kitten-like?) clusters of blue with white dots. Toothed leaves spiral up the 5-6” hairy stems. The fruits are flattened and heart-shaped.
Taxonomy of this species is challenging to say the least. The species has undergone 4 name changes. Within 5 years at the start of the 1900s, the genus name changed from Wulfenia to Syntrhis and finally to Besseya to commemorate Charles Bessey (1845-1915) an American botanist from the University of Nebraska. Bessey wrote several influential text books providing guiding principles to help standardize classification. However, recently DNA, not just structural form of flowers and fruits, has become key to analyzing genealogical relationships. Thus, as this new information evolved, Kittentails went from the genus Besseya to Synthris to Veronica and from the Figwort/Snapdragon Family to the Plantain Family (for now). (reference)
Nuttall’s Violet – Viola nuttallii – is also part of a taxonomic complex with several varieties, subspecies or different species (V. praemorsa, V. vallicola) being included or excluded – arrrgh! (reference) In any case, the basal leaves are more or less oval, often hairy, and the flowers are recognizable as violets: two up-facing petals, two side petals, and one lower petal.
Often there are nectar guides leading toward the back of the flower to help insects reach nectar tucked in tiny spurs beyond. By moving in and out–back and forth–against the stigma and anthers (#3 in Illus.), an insect gathers pollen, as well as nectar, and carries it to another violet plant.
The insides are more complex that first meets the eye as seen in this illustration:
Nuttall’s Violet complex has yellow flowers and oblong to ovoid mostly basal leaves. The back of flower petals may be tinged in purple. Taxonomists are examining the elaborate stigmas (#4) for definitive ID.
Violets have fertile flowers which require insects to cross-fertilize. These are obvious to us and pollinators.
Violets also have hidden cleistogamous flowers at the base of the plants that self-fertilize. This back-up plan helps assure that there will be seeds for another generation of violets. Seeds are ejected from the 3-parted dry fruits (#5) and then dispersed by ants who seek them out for their nutritious elaiosomes.
One more thing, violets are host plants for several types of Fritillary butterfly larvae – Speyeria, Boloria spp. Eggs laid by the adults near the violet plants, hatch out larvae in spring which depend on the violet leaves to grow into butterflies.
Shooting-star – Dodocatheon conjugens – is another “belly botany” plant. Their 4-5” scapes rise from a whorl of basal leaves. These stems are topped by several dangling flowers each with 5 pink petals swept back with rings of white then yellow accented with red at their base. This colorful target is further enhanced by the yellow then black of the stamens.
The flower is designed to attract primarily bumblebees which cling to tiny knobs at the base of the stamens belly up. The bee then buzzes its wings at a certain frequency and pollen will bounce out onto the bee’s belly. When the bee flies to a flower where the female stigma is receptive, it will once again cling upside down, and the pollen will stick to the protruding stigma. Only certain bees have the agility and perfect wing beat to carry out this transfer.
After a flower is thus “buzz- pollinated”, a capsule will form. It will split open at the tip, and shake out seeds.
Pollination note: To avoid self-pollination, many plants will produce male parts first e.g. the anthers with pollen, and then the female parts e.g. ovary with eggs; or visa versa. The idea is that the pollen does not rub off on the nearby receptive female parts of the same flower. Outcrossing – mixing up genes from different individuals – provides more opportunity of success.
What’s in Bloom – Early Spring – Representing some common Plant Families
Over the course of the season, you will likely come across members of these common families. Recognizing the family traits enables you to look more closely at the variations in the features and narrow down identification. Also the families have interesting uses and histories.
Here we include:
Carrot/Parsley Family – Apiaceae, formerly Umbelliferae – Biscuitroots, Spring Parsley
Pea or Legume Family – Fabaceae, formerly Legumosae – Milkvetch, Locoweed
Mustard Family – Brassicaceae – formerly Cruciferae – Twinpods, Rockcress, Madwort
Aster or Daisy Family – Asteraceae, formerly Compositae – Pussytoes, Townsendia
Carrot or Parsley Family – Apiaceae – has been recognizable since the time of the Ancient Greeks. The basic flower plan includes divided, mostly alternate leaves and tiny flowers arranged in “umbels”. Umbels are floral structures similar to umbrella ribs: the stem comes up and then branches from this central point outwards. Flowers are arrayed at the tips.
Flowers form fruits called “schizocarps” of various lengths, shapes, and venation that split in two with one seed for each side upon maturity. The pair can dangle from a fine coat hanger-like structure. In many cases it is easier to ID the species when in fruit than in flower.
Plants in this family are often distinctly fragrant due to many different chemicals – some are appealing to smell and taste, some are medicinal, and some are deadly. Anise, cilantro, dill, cumin, parsley, and fennel are just a few members of this family. Poison Hemlock and Water Hemlock (Conium maculatum, Cicuta spp.) are deadly relatives. Other species have chemicals which can blister the skin: our local Cow Parsnip and its much more nasty non-native cousin Hogweed. Plants develop these myriad chemicals for defense. (reference)
Biscuitroots – Lomatiums – have enlarged storage roots, many of which were once used for food by indigenous peoples, as well as being important for wildlife. Here are some early blooming biscuitroots. Leaf dissection, color, smell, flower color, and involucral bracts all help in ID. The fruits will be flat, rounded schizocarps. Some plants bloom while quite small and then keep expanding with warmer weather.
Desert Biscuitroots – Lomatium foeniculaceum – are small plants 3-4” across, maybe 2-3” tall in early spring. They are found on dry knolls.
The stems and the leaves are bluish-gray hairy. Hairs help shade plant leaves and stems and also reduce wind to prevent water loss in dry locations such as dry knolls and slopes.
Flowers are pale yellow.
The fruits will slowly flatten with wide margins and low-ridged veins.
Cous Biscuitroot – Lomatium cous – has deep-green dissected leaves often with reddish petioles and umbels of bright-yellow flowers. Plants grow about 6” across and 6” or so high. Their bright flowers are obvious near the parking lot just east of the roundabout north of Jackson.
Nine-leaf Biscuitroot – Lomatium simplex/triternatum – can be hard to find at first even though they can be quite common in sagebrush habitats. The early, pale, thin, finely hairy leaves blend in with surrounding grasses. Gradually the pale-yellow umbels will rise to 6” or so and the compound leaves will spread their 9 slender segments or lobes.
Wyeth Biscuitroot – Lomatium ambiguum – is indeed ambiguus in its features.
The flowers are distinctly bright yellow and spread wide with no little involucel bracts beneath the flowers – a clear difference between it and Nine-leaf Biscuitroot. The compound leaves have relatively few linear segments as in Nine-leaf Biscuitroots; however, the segments are more variable in width and usually a deeper green. They have stem leaves that have expanded leaf-sheaths.
Wyeth Biscuitroots grow up to 12” or so and often can be seen in bright colonies on slopes such as the south end of the inner park road.
Spring Parsley – Cymopterus spp. – is just emerging. Different species can easily be confused with biscuitroots and many come out later. The fruits are a key difference: Schizocarps are winged on their veins, but these can take a while to fully mature.
Rarely seen, Long-stalked Spring Parsley – Cymopterus longipes – has distinctively tidy divided leaves that are almost blue.
The leaves lay flat to the ground with a white umbel in the center. However, all will rise: A pseudo-scape elongates from the ground raising the whorl of leaves up several inches while the flower scape also elongates several inches.
The winged fruits will thus be lifted up into the winds to disperse.
I have seen them growing in the red clay on an exposed slope near the beaver ponds of Game Creek, and much later in summer on Teton Pass.
The Pea family – Fabaceae – The family is usually pretty easy to identify by its “pea-like” flowers. The flowers are bilaterally symmetrical (like our faces), each has an upright banner, often with nectar guides; a lower keel made up of two joined petals which hide and protect the male stamens and female pistils, and wings that more or less wrap around the keel from the sides. When insects land and push to the back of the banner for nectar, the fertile parts pop up from within the keel, thus aiding in the transfer of pollen of one flower to a mature stigma on another flower.
The fruits will typically be pea-pod like. Inside the keel and staments, you can see the elongated ovary which contains several ovules that will form seeds with fertilization.
The Pea Family is important in many ways. Members of this family fix-nitrogen. Roots form round nodules to harbor rhizobia bacteria. The plant provides bacteria with carbohydrates while in exchange bacteria convert the plentiful but useless dinitrogen (N2) in the air, including air pockets in the soil, to ammonia (NH 3) that plants and most organisms need for survival. Thus members of the Pea Family can grow in very poor soils and also enrich soils for other plant species and many other life forms. (reference)
Given the ability to fix nitrogen which in turn produces proteins, nucleic acids, and DNA, the fruits – legumes – and seeds are especially nutritious as we know from eating peas, beans, soybeans, etc. On the other hand, some plants in the Astragalus and Oxytropis genera are termed locoweeds. Locoweeds contain an alkaloid, swainsonine, that affects the nervous systems of animals. (Reference)
The Pea Family – is the third largest plant family in the world with two other major branches whose flowers look different than what we see here.
Pursh’s Milkvetch’s – Astragalus purshii – pea-shaped flowers are a creamy white, the wings are longer than the keel, and the keel is upturned and tipped with purple.
Leaves are hairy and pinnately compound.
The fruit is a small, tough, very hairy, sharply tapering pod. Astragalus is the most common genus in Teton County and in the world.
Hare’s-foot Locoweed – Oxytropis lagopus – has a recognizable pea-like, magenta flower. The banner grades from bright magenta to white at the base.
The keel points straight out. I think of an ox as in Oxytropis – goring you!
The calyx surrounding much of the pod is covered in long white hairs with short black hairs underneath. Leaves are usually less than 4″. They are more commonly collected in Teton County than a very similar, but larger Oxytropus besseyi which has fewer hairs on the calyx. Definitive ID is welcome.
The Mustard Family – Brassicaceae – includes cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower which are all referred to as brassicas. Flowers typically have 4 sepals, 4 petals, 6 anthers: 4 long, 2 short, and a central pistil. Fruits are highly variable. The short squat fruits (<3x as long as wide) are referred to as “silicles”, and the longer ones are “siliques” – think sleek siliques. There are many, many mustards, and ultimate ID can be based not only on details of the mature fruits, but also of hairs (trichomes)! Many species are known to hybridize, too, so all-in-all mustards can be hard to ID. Below are three species in bloom right now whose fruits will exhibit the range of fruit shapes.
Rockcresses – Boechera spp – definitely have a complex. The authoritative Flora of North America states that Boechera is the most complex genus in all North America!
Furthermore, a rust fungus – Puccinia monoica – growing on immature plants can fool insects and us into thinking the plant is in bloom–right when we botanists are desperate for spring color.
The fungus alters the development process not only to have the same bright yellow colors and shape of many spring flowers including buttercups, but also to exude appealing fragrances and sugar rewards. This mimicry enables spores to be deliberately spread by pollinators to other host plants. (reference)
Here I hazard that the species shown is Boechera retrofracta, which currently combines several species (P. exilis, holboeillii) listed in Dorn’s Vascular Plant of Wyoming. Note the elongated descending fruits, are siliques – truly “sleek siliques”.
Desert Madwort – Alyssum desertorum – is a winter annual introduced from Europe and Asia on for its purported medicinal values: to cure hiccups, mental illness, and rabies “A-lyssum” means “away madness”. It can be plentiful in disturbed sites, such as around parking areas and along roadsides. (Reference) The species has been naturally incorporated into the diets of pronghorn and harvester ants with no known ill effects.
The yellowish flowers cluster along the upper 3-4” stem and produce flat, rounded, smooth fruits – silicles. Note the intricate hairs.
- Twinpods – Physaria spp. – have bright yellow flowers and often silvery spade-shaped leaves. The hairs are star-like – stellate – which are fun to see with a 10x handlens. Positive ID needs to await until the fruits are fully ripe.
Found on dry knolls and slopes near Kelly, the species above appears to be forming flatish small fruits. As such it used to be in the Bladderpod – Lesquerella genus before the two genera were combined into Twinpods – Physaria spp. But again we have to wait and see. (And find the same plants again!)
In this Twinpod species the fruits are ballon-like. The number of seeds inside is a key ID feature. This is Physaria acutifolia or P. didymocarpa, but the fruits need to be dissected. In any case the fruits are cool!
Lowly early members of the Aster/Daisy Family – Asteraceae. The old name for this family was Compositae referring to the fact that many small flowers rest on a platform surrounded by protective bracts to form a flower head. Sunflowers are a classic example. Being the largest plant family in the world, composites have almost infinite variations on this theme. Here are two quite different species seen in early spring.
Low Pussytoes – Antennaria dimorpha – is our earliest and smallest pussytoes in the county. Mats of silvery hairy leaves almost hide the single flower heads.
Most of the flowers of Low Pussytoes are female and can self-fertilize. Otherwise, wind, bees, butterflies, and moths help transport pollen to the female flowers on separate plants.
Fruits are almost ready to disperse on the wind with the aid of silky hairs, techincally a pappus, or “fluff”.
Tucked tight among rocks on dry slopes – Common Townsendia – Townsendii leptodes – is slowly opening its substantial, stemless flower heads. The outer petal-like white-to-pinkish ray flowers surround many yellow “disc” flowers.
The pointed bracts that protect each head are neatly overlapping like shingles on a roof. The silvery leaves are oblong, slightly hairy and bunched close to the ground.
As with the many members of the Aster Famiily, dandelions included, the fruits will fly off on a hairy pappus.
Tap roots extend deeply not only to reach much needed water, but also to anchor the plants on the steep slopes. Watch your step, please. These plants are hard to see and may be dozens of years old.
The flowers in this posting may have come and gone in the southern part of the valley, but may still be seen at higher elevations or in northern parts of the park. It’s hard to keep up! We hope this post helps you to look, and to look again carefully to fully appreciate the life of plants.
Very soon many more flowers will open to greet pollinators – we will try to keep you posted.
Enjoy!
Teton Plants
As always, your comments and corrections are most welcome. We want to be as accurate as possible without being too technical. Thank you.
4.29.26 – FHC
Teton Plants 