Claytonia lanceolata

Ute: noogkachoon, noowhchoon

flowering season: March - June

One of the earliest spring ephemerals, she blooms just a few days after snowmelt. She can bloom in large patches, but is more commonly found in small colonies in sunny spots under stands of ponderosa pine. She is just 2-4 inches tall, her flowers are pale pink with pink stripes, her leaves are slender and pointed, and her blooms only last about two weeks.

After blooming, she dies back to her root (called a corm), a round, edible tuber 1-4 inches long, grazed by deer, elk, sheep, and bear, and foraged by Indigenous peoples. Tasting of mild radishes when raw, and like potatoes when roasted or boiled, her corm kept well as a winter food. Her leaves are also edible and rich in Vitamin A and C, as she belongs to the Montiaceae, or “miner’s lettuce” family.

Another species, Claytonia rosea (Western or Rocky Mountain Spring Beauty) is also found in Colorado. Claytonia virginica is often found and foraged in woodlands of the eastern and midwestern United States, her flowers and leaves prized as sweet salad greens.

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Pediocactus simpsonii

Arapaho: Cé:yo:kú (“round standing plant”)

flowering season: April - July

Kinnikinnick, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

Ute: tahmahup; Arapaho: Noh’úwunobí:se’ (“smoke plant berries”), Noh’uwúno’ (“bearberries”); Cheyenne: No?aneonotse, ma?kemenotse (“red berry”)

flowering season: March - June

A low-growing evergreen shrub, she grows into large mats that carpet forest floors. Her leaves are shiny and leathery, her tiny bell-shaped flowers hang in small clusters in spring, and bright red berries form in late summer. The berries are bland when eaten raw, but were cooked with meat and dried into cakes by Indigenous peoples, and can be made into jams and jellies. Young leaves can be made into a tea, a traditional medicine for urinary tract health. Bears in particular utilize this plant - in late fall, they eat the berries and other vegetation to create a blockage in their digestive system for the winter hibernation season. She can also be used to make a yellow dye.

She is often called Kinnikinnick, an Algonquin word for "that which is mixed". Dried Bearberry leaves are often the base ingredient, combined with other herbs (red osier dogwood, arrowroot, sumac, laurel, huckleberry, cherry bark, mullein, and sometimes tobacco) for smoking mixtures. Recipes for mixtures vary, as do the uses, from social, to spiritual, to medicinal. By extension, the name came to be used for many shrubs of which the bark and leaves are used in smoking mixtures, but this plant is Bearberry or Uva Ursi.

Long-Plumed Avens, Old Man’s Whiskers, Torchflower, Geum triflorum

flowering season: April - June

Calypso orchid, Venus Orchid, Calypso bulbosa

flowering season: late May - early June, lasting only 7-10 days

Western Red Currant, Ribes cereum

Ute: poghoypi, Arapaho: Beni:so:no; Beniisoono’ (“fuzzy/hairy berries”)

flowering season: April - June

flowering season: June - July

Milkweed, Butterflyweed, Asclepias speciosa

Ute: sana′komav; Arapaho: He0ebéíhto:no (“dog’s feet”); Cheyenne: matanaavo?estse (“milk plant”), matanaamaxestse (“milk wood”)

flowering season: June - July

Sweetpea, Lathyrus laetivirens

flowering season: May - July

Pink Pussytoes, Antennaria rosea

flowering season: June- July

Wild Honeysuckle, Scarlet Gaura, Gaura coccinea

flowering season: March - August

Wild Geranium, Geranium viscosissimum

Arapaho: Ceyótowóhoonó’ (“false mint”); Cheyenne: matomenevo?estse (“nosebleed plant”), matomeneheseeo?otse (“nosebleed medicine”)

flowering season: May - July

Corallorhiza maculata

flowering season: May - August

Woodland Pinedrops, Pterospora andromedea

She has no chlorophyll, instead lives in a parasitic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi under conifer trees

flowering season: June - August

Physocarpus monogynus

This blooming shrub is also named for her bark that peels into long strips along her thin branches

flowering season: May - June

Stinkweed, Stinking Clover, Spiderflower, Cleome serrulata

flowering season: July - August

Birdsbill, Dark Throated Shooting Star, Prairie Pointer, Dodecatheon pulchellum

flowering season: May - July

Bee Balm, Horsemint, Monarda fistulosa

flowering season: June - September

Erodium cicutarium, Storksbill, Pinkets

flowering season: May - August

Colorado Locoweed, Purple Locoweed, Oxytropis lambertii

Arapaho: Sí:sí:yeibi:0hí:t (“snake food”); Cheyenne: ve?ohkeheseeo?otse (“bitter medicine”)

flowering season: March - August

Pink Wintergreen, Pyrola asarifolia

flowering season: June - August

Geum rivale

flowering season: June - August

Chamerion angustifolium

Arapaho: Xoowoo (“Ceremonial lance”); Cheyenne: ma?eheseeo?otse (“red medicine”)

One of the first wildflowers to bloom after a fire, she grows tall in bright sunlight and holds hope that the forest will grow again 🌸

flowering season: June - August

Gayfeather, Blazing Star, Liatris punctata

flowering season: July - October

Mirabilis linearis

flowering season: May - September

She blooms late in the afternoon.