Day by day the wildflowers bloom for the first time this season, one or two at a time, one bright color after another. It's fun to watch and photograph (that's why I do it.) I'm staying the summer at RedRock RV Park in Island Park, Idaho and have a unique opportunity to see this gradual blooming of the landscape from the forest meadows to sagebrush plains and lakeside riparian environments. These diverse environments are mostly within a mile of the RV Park, but I do venture further in my explorations, a few miles west to the RedRock Lakes Wildlife Refuge or east to Yellowstone National Park or north to the Madison River valley.

Today, my Golden Retriever, Reggie and I walked again to a hillside meadow about 1/2 mile west of the RV park. We had been recently (3 days ago) so I didn't expect to see many new flowers, albeit I did expect to see more fully developed specimens of those we've logged in the last weeks. We had a nice drenching rain storm since then that might have spurred some of the flowers to bloom.

Of course the regular early bloomers were out in full regala: Glacier Lily, Vase Flower, Sagebrush Buttercup, Yellow Bell and the Western Shooting Star. Now in full bloom is the Western Spring Beauty (after they warm up in the morning). Also, the Arrowleaf Balsamroot should start appearing all over this area soon. So far only one bloomer is evident.

Today, I found the beautiful Ballhead waterleaf (Hydrophyllum capitatum) blooming for the first time. It's also called WOOLEN BREECHES . There was only one specimen so far. I found this blooming last year about the same time, so they are right on schedule. This plant grows from Colorado west (except AZ and NM). It is a purple flower with 5 projecting anthers, 5 sepals and 5 petals. The cluster of flowers hides under the leaves.

The entire plant has little hairs that give it a very soft and woolly appearance (hence the name Woolen breeches). The anthers projecting out from the bell-shaped flowers also give it a soft fluffy look. It is found in semi-wet places, like recently melted snow (which certainly accounts for it here since this area was under snow just 2 week prior.) It was used as a nutritious food source by Native American peoples.

The Oregon Grape (Berberis repens) is starting to bloom. I found one specimen. These "shrubs" grow close to the ground and don't really look like a shrub except that they keep their leaves from year to year. The blooms start as little green balls, mature in a few days to bright yellow balls, and then burst into fluffy yellow ball-shaped flowers, as this specimen did today. Since the Oregon Grape is so numerous in this meadow, I expect to find lots more blooming soon.





Finally, the False Solomon's Seal (Meaianthemum racemonsum) is blooming. It's also called Wild Lily of the Valley. It's a forest shade loving plant. It's not a typical flower in the sense that it appears as a tassel on the end of a beautiful symmetrical stalk, but consists of a whole bunch of very small white petaled, yellow-anthered flowers. Look at the closeup for the small developing flowers. Eventually, this flowers will produce a couple red-berries. This specimen is not yet mature, as the final plant will have a white tassel.


Although the Western Spring Beauty (Claytonia lanceolata) is scattered all over the upper meadow here, few are in full-bloom at this time of the morning (8 AM) . I did find out that the flowers close in the late afternoon and open again with the warming in the morning. This one specimen was in full sunlight and had almost fully opened.


These were the only "new" flowers today, but I'll add a couple more pictures of other flowers that I found particularly photogenic today, like this Shooting Star, and this peculiarly colored dark orange Yellow Bell. Come see us and see for yourself at RedRock RV Park.