Favorite Colorado Wildflower?

Am researching for an article again, about Colorado Wildflowers (may soon be doing one for Rocky Mountain zone, so would love to hear everyone's!).
I have a long list of Colorado wildflowers I've become fond of and/or found online and in books, but would love to hear your favorites and why. If you have pictures, I would love to post them in my article ... from natives about natives lol!

Hope everyone is enjoying the late-Spring weather! I know I am, including the overcast/drizzly weather we're having today.
Susanne

For Colorado, Rocky Mountain Columbine, hands down.

For Montana, Bitterroot.

May have pics that could work for you on the columbine, and should start seeing if the bitterroot is blooming up on top of a nearby mountain. If so, will be photographing them...

lupine, indian paintbrush, penstemons (lots!)

Thank you both! I'd love to see your pics mm.
Penstemons are my favorite too gj, though I don't want to write the whole thing about them (i already have one going about them heh)
It's hard to choose which wildflowers to write about. I will definitely include the above mentioned.

We have wild liatris here in New Mexico. I bet you all have it to. It is lovely. I also like many of the cactus flowers -- claret cup and cholla. I suspect you have both.

It's too hard to pick. I LUV wildflowers. Here is a good list for Alberta http://www.alclanativeplants.com/section2/main.htm

Great thank you Betty and dahlianut! And thanks for the link--that will be helpful.

I love all the above, but also want to add Ratibida (prairie coneflower), Linum lewisii (blue flax), Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed), Helianthus maximiliana (Maximilian's sunflower), Salvia pachyphylla (Mojave sage), Gaillardia (blanket flower), Oenothera macrocarpa (Missouri evening primrose), Mirabilis multiforus (wild four-o-clock), and my favorite -- Agastache (hummingbird mint). I think these are all native to Colorado, although if not, they're RM natives. I think they're mostly short-grass prairie natives. Agastache have beautiful fine-leaved foliage that's fragrant, and then the towers of colorful tubular flowers that attract hummingbirds, bees, butterflies and moths. They're all wonderful, but I think my favorite variety is Sunset Hyssop, which has two toned flowers -- dark orange and dark pink.

Thank you for that great list Trisha!! Just what I need. I think I have the Missouri primrose on my list, but the others I missed. I love Agastache too, especially now that I recently learned how to say the name, lol. The Sunset Hyssop sounds gorgeous.

I wonder, does anyone know if Caryopteris is native to the Rockies? I can find it pretty easily here, but in Houston my mom (who loves it too) has a hard time getting a hold of it.

PS, just because I know you guys might appreciate it, today I found a killer sale at a nursery down the street. I got 10 shrubs (in 5 gal pots) for $2.00 a piece! I got 3 lilacs, 3 caryopteris, 1 Silver Buffaloberry, 1 Vibernum edule, 1 Barberry, and one complete unknown. Isn't that exciting! :-)

Just for curiosity I looked up caryopteris in Google which took me to Wikipedia. Apparently it is from China and SE Asia and is a member of the Mint family ( wouldn't you know.) I don't see why your mother would have trouble getting it but it might be because, as well as it grows in dry places, it may turn into something the size of a house in Houston! or maybe it would rot. Anyhow, maybe you can send her some seeds. It reseeds all over my yard.
As for your sale, congratulations, but I am very thankful that I missed it. I have bought so many more plants than I seem to be able to get planted it is embarassing. I, at least, got all the trees in, but have many more bushes and perennials to plant. My eyes are so much bigger than my digging arm!
Anyhow, if I had been at that sale, I would probably have come home with a truckload. Never buy a truck!
Congratulations. I hope you plant faster than I do!

Hm, interesting. Most plants turn into the size of houses in Houston! lol, makes me both jealous and a little glad that not ALL of my plants take over. I'll try to send her some seeds, good idea.

I was excited to find the 2 dollar plants because my terrace is bad and getting worse. I need something to control the erosion and that something needs to be super drought tolerant and/or established. I tried wildflower seeds, but it's too dry and dusty to get any germination. Out of the 3 trees I've planted, only one took. So...I'm going to try 2$ plants and see how it goes without much to lose. We'll see if I ever get the energy to haul all those big plants up there and plant them, lol!

I wish I had two dollar plants, but my ankles already hurt, so just as well I don't have the opportunity to wound myself further!

Here is a wildflower I photographed this morning. I am not any good at wildflower id, anyone recognize it? Probably something obvious, but I don't know.

Larkspur? gorgeous blue!

Here's a photo for comparison:
http://www.nps.gov/wica/naturescience/wildflowers-low-larkspur.htm
I'm pretty sure I've seen them in the Colorado Rockies too, but I'm definitely not a wildflower id expert ;-)

TrishaG I think its a larkspur too (delphinium ajacis). Very prettiful.

Here's one I have seen in the mountains around here.

Southern Shooting Star - Dodecatheon pulchellum

http://www.nps.gov/wica/naturescience/wildflowers.htm

This is one of my favs - hesparis (dames rocket) all through the rockies.

actually this might be a better pic. oops sorry just learning the pic thing.

Very pretty. It reminds me of phlox. But I don't recall having seen it. Is there a common name for it? Here is one that grows wild around here and that is also sold for gardens. I mentioned it above, liatris:

http://www.hort.wisc.edu/mastergardener/features/flowers/liatris/liatris.htm

It grows well around here in the wild or in one's yard.

Oh cool! Thanks for the pics. I didn't know a lot of these were wild here! Dame's Rocket..someone gave me seeds of that the other day. Love that Shooting Star- so interesting.

I just bought a liatris yesterday at hd. I'm excited to see it bloom. I never really understood their beauty until recently.

Okay, here is a picture of the claret cup cactus, a real beauty when found growing out of a canyon wall. Actually I looked at several pictures of them and found this the best, but none as pretty as the actual cactus. People do grow them in their yards as well. It is a big no-no to swipe them from nature. They grow very slowly.

http://www.highcountrygardens.com/catalog/product/46987/

Cactus flowers are some of the most beautiful flowers in the west-- including Colorado. We tend to forget how lovely they are because many of us don't plant them in our yards because getting stuck is not appealing.
In searching for decent cactus pictures, I found a wonderful web site for wildflowers in Southwest Colorado. Great pictures of all kinds of wild flowers, with names and descriptions. They have lots of cacti and show them in their huge array of colors. And they even tell you where in Colorado the picture was taken.

http://www.swcoloradowildflowers.com/index.htm#top

Here are the cacti I found before I got to the above excellent web site.

Turns out Plant Files has the best pictures of the claret cup cactus -- duh!

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/55534/

And here is a picture of a pincushion cactus:
These are quite small, especially during drought, but when bloom time comes in April, I have seen them with white, yelllow, fuschia and green flowers. They can be very striking. See

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/102755/
and the ones from DG:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/63567/

Here is a field with cactus flowers -- probably a kind of prickly pear although cholla cactus comes in the same shade:

http://tinyurl.com/5763u9

This is definitely the picture of a cholla cactus. Imagine an entire field of these:

http://tinyurl.com/5q89xc

Happy writing!
Betty

I love to see Penstemmons when I'm out hiking. This year, a long spring let the pens bloom profusely, especially the blue ones on the Colorado National Monument.

I like the fact that Evening Primrose (Oenathera species) rebel to have large-petalled flowers. We've got at least three species I've seen locally and I grow the fragrant O. hookeri in my garden.

Recently, I don't know what species this is:

Perhaps showiest as far as individual flowers, my favourite Lily-family plant here in the nastiest parts of the desert is the Mariposas/Sago lilies:
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GFRC,GFRC:2006-50,GFRC:en&q=calochortus%20venustus&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

Great photos, Kenton!
Art_n_garden, I just read an article about non-native invasives and it reminded me that sometimes we see wildflowers that don't actually belong. Just a heads-up.
I meant to write you this note with the article at my side, because it mentioned one plant that I think is in our thread, maybe "shooting star"? Sorry if I got that wrong. I do remember ox-eye daisy and purple loosestrife as invasives.

That's a great point TrishaG. We have ornamental invasives here too that many think are wildflowers. This site shows ours http://invasiveplants.ab.ca/InvasiveOrnamentals.htm LOL I intentionally have a few of these in my garden but boy o boy the creeping bellflower is a nasty, nasty.

Thanks for the photos Kenton-beautiful! I like those Sago lilies, never heard of them. And thanks you for the links Betty- very helpful. I has found that SW Colorado wildflowers link...it has so much to look through!

I agree with you Trisha- that's important and thank you for bringing it up. I intend to research the plants I use in the article really well..I don't want to get caught not thoroughly informed.