Inland Northwest Wildflowers

Digitalis purpurea L. - Purple Foxglove

Foxglove is another European interloper, but she's a beauty and I'm glad she made the journey to the Inland Northwest. This one was growing along the side of the road and creek, just outside of Mt. Spokane State Park. It gets the name digitalis because of the ease with which the flowers fit over our fingers/digits. It is poisonous so don't feed it to the kids, (cardiac glycoside digitoxin) but ironically it's extracts are used medicinally to treat heart failure.

Go here for a Washington-centric take on the Foxglove from the wonderful Burke Museum of Natural History site at the University of Washington. One interesting discovery is that many of the flowers I am discovering are not supposed to be where I am finding them. For example, the Burke map indicates that that foxglove is not known to occur in Spokane County. It's possible it was simply introduced (there was a house nearby), but there are many others whose location is inexplicable. My guess is that part of the gap is that less leg work has been done on the east side of the state to ID and specify the location of certain wildflowers. Note on the map that almost every West side county is highlighted while only Whitman County is highlighted for the east side. Is it possible that the presence of WSU in Whitman County has resulted in this? I'm new to the native plant community in Eastern Washington but I'm looking forward to seeing how our adventures might provide some data points for more accurate information on East side wildflowers.

Centaurea cyanus L. - Cornflower

Cornflower, also commonly known as Bachelor's Button, is technically not a flower of the Inland Northwest, but it's found throughout the region so we might as well deal with it. It ranks as a noxious weed in ag circles but is adored by some home gardeners and has a unique beauty that's worth appreciating. This annual comes from Europe.

This comment from the wiki site caught my attention:

In the past it often grew as a weed in crop fields, hence its name (fields growing grains such as wheat, barley, rye, or oats were formerly known as "corn fields" in England). It is now endangered in its native habitat by agricultural intensification, particularly over-use of herbicides, destroying its habitat; in the United Kingdom it has declined from 264 sites to just 3 sites in the last 50 years.

One person's noxious invader is another person's endangered species.

My favorite characteristic of the cornflowers we've seen in and around Spokane is that they come in a delightful variety of colors.

 

"It looks like a bug with feathers flying out." Lily

Gaillardia aristata - Blanketflower

This seems to be one of the most prolific and colorful wildflowers in the Inland Northwest region. It is widely domesticated so it is common in seed stores and gardens. According to the US Forest Service;

Blanketflower is a cool season, slender, short-lived perennial, with fuzzy light green leaves. Its flowers are typically bright red with yellow tips. Blanketflower is native to most of the western states, the upper Great Plains, around the Great Lakes, and in portions of New England...The genus Gaillardia was dedicated in 1788 in honor of the early French botanist Gaillard de Charentonneau. Aristata means "bearing bristles" in botanical Latin, in reference to the rough hairy leaves and stems.

This flower was one of 7 species of wildflower collected by Merriweather Lewis and his group in 1806 as they crossed the Continental Divide. The flower is also known as Brown-Eyed Susan. We have found several varieties with different coloring and petal configurations.

 

"It looks like a play toy steering wheel." Lily

"It looks like lots of little chickens putting their tail up in a circle." Noel

Clarkia Pulchella - Beautiful "Pinkfairies"

We found this Clarkia Pulchella or pinkfairy on the side off the road between Spokane and Pullman. It looked like an ocean of pink dots from the road. There were several large patches of them with many other flowers scattered around. Pulchella is Latin for beautiful and beautiful it is. It is also known as ragged robin or elkhorn clarkia.

Click on the images below to see the distribution of this flower in North America, a picture of the specimen of clarkia pulchella collected by Lewis and Clark on their explorations and the beautiful drawing by Pursh based on the specimin provided by Lewis and Clark. We've also got two other pictures for some other perspectives.

"It looks like 12 chicken toes with a little white flower in the middle" Noel