Well, suffice it to say that Guanella Pass feels pretty different than it did 50-70 years ago.  Pull up a chair, youngster, and let me tell you all about it….  Okay, I won’t subject you to that, but this creeping metroplex yearning for the hills is certainly evident on a Saturday morning.  So, the number of weekenders was a bit of a non-highlight, while the biggest highlight may have been another non-flower event – a ginormous bull moose with full spreading rack munching on some willows about a quarter of a mile away.  This is North America’s largest artiodactyl (even-toed) ungulate (hoofed mammal) and can weigh up to about 1700 lbs.  We kept our distance.

As for the flowers we didn’t get too serious about keying all species out, and preferred to keep moving along and were satisfied to just identify some only to genus, e.g. we let some composites go as Erigeron or Aster species – these are two genera in the Asteraceae family with multiple representatives, and which superficially can look a lot alike.  Speaking of the Asteraceae family (which used to be called the Compositae family), what may appear to us as a single flower, e.g. one daisy, is in fact a “composite” of many very simple flowers all clustered together, some of these are “ray” flowers, which are generally female, and which have the appearance of petals, and others are “disc” flowers which have both male and female parts, and which form the head, or central disc, of the “flower.”

Overall, we were surrounded by an abundance of showy alpine flowers that were generally easy to identify, and we were gratified to be out on the tundra on a beautiful morning.

Good Botanizing, Chuck!

Common Juniper
Engelmann Spruce
Whiskbroom Parsley
Burnt-orange Dandelion
Horned Dandelion
Rocky Mountain Sage
Pussytoes spp
Goldenrod
Black-tipped Senecio
Triangle-leafed Senecio
Goldflower
Old-Man-of-the-Mountain
Yarrow
Erigeron spp
Aster spp
Tall Chiming Bells
Alpine Chiming Bells
Wallflower
Rockcress
Draba spp
Alpine Harebell
Mountain Harebell
Alpine Chickweed
Alpine Sandwort
Fendler’s Sandwort
King’s Crown
Queen’s Crown
Parry’s Clover<
Fireweed
Jacob’s Ladder
Alpine Bistort
American Bistort
Oarleaf Buckwheat
Colorado Columbine
Marsh Marigold
Wild Strawberry
Shrubby Cinquefoil
Potentilla spp
Alpine Avens
Willow spp
Red Paintbrush
Rose Paintbrush
Sulphur Paintbrush
Elephant’s head
Alpine Lousewort
Alpine Speedwell
Littleflower Penstemon
Hall’s Penstemon
Whipple’s Penstemon
Mountain Valerian
Edible Valerian