Pasqueflower, Wind flower, Wild Crocus, Prairie Smoke~ she is one of the first blooms to welcome Spring to the plains and foothills 💜 Downy silver hairs on her stems, leaves, and petals glow in the sunlight ✨💜✨

Pulsatilla hirutissima is the state flower of South Dakota, and a little more purple-hued than Colorado's blue-violet Pulsatilla patens 💜 Her Lakhóta name is Hokšíčhekpa, or "child's navel", as her plump buds resemble a newborn's navel. She is also called Uŋčí Waȟčá, or "Grandmother Flower". There is a story that once, pasqueflower blooms were only white. One day in late winter, a young man went to a hill to pray. He was cold and lonely, and as it became dark, he wrapped his robe tightly around himself. He heard a little voice call out, a little white flower, wrapped in his robe, thanking him for the warm embrace. Over the days of his quest, the flower encouraged him, and assured him that he would have his vision. After he left, the flower shivered again in the cold. Creator looked down, was pleased with the flower, and offered her a gift. She said that she enjoyed the warmth of the bison robe, that she loved the colors of sunrise and twilight, and the warmth of the sun. Creator gifted her a robe of her own, painted her dress purple, and her heart gold as the sun. She sings courage to all the other flowers of the new season and reminds them not to fear their time, but to rejoice because their spirits will go on to color the rainbows.

Claytonia lanceolata

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.

Shop prints of Spring Beauty~ 5x7, 8x10, poster print

Also known as bearberry or Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, she is a low-growing evergreen with soft leathery leaves, bell-shaped pink flowers in spring, and bright red berries in late summer. It grow into large mats that cover the forest floor, close to the earth, often in sandy or rocky soils, and has long been known across many Indigenous nations for its importance. Kinnikinnick is an Algonquin word widely used to describe traditional smoking blends, often including the leaves of this plant. Beyond that, bearberry has been used in many ways~ as a nutritional source (the berries, high in Vitamin C, were cooked with meat and dried into cakes), and as medicine (now commonly found in most supplement aisles), as a grounding presence on the land, and as part of cultural practices that are specific to the nations who hold that knowledge.

Here, she gathers berries in a woven pine needle basket, wearing a Plains red trade cloth dress inspired by historical garments. I am not Indigenous, and this painting comes from a place of respect rather than authority. I offer it with care, acknowledging the living cultures, histories, and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, past, present and future.

Wild iris, Mountain iris, Blue flag, Iris missouriensis

She dances through wet, open meadows in late spring and into early July 🩵💙🩵

The month of June (or rather, the time of early summer between June and July's moons) is also called the Strawberry Moon ✨️🍓✨ and in many Indigenous and First Nations cultures, wild strawberries are known as heart berries 🍓❤️🍓 Shaped like a heart, her fruit is connected to her leaves, runners and roots, like our hearts are connected to all parts of our body and spirit, and to our family and community 🍓❤️🍓 To some, she represents a nurturing love, femininity and renewal, mothers and mother earth, the power of women to create and sustain life 🍓❤️🍓 She is central to so many beautiful stories and teachings, I encourage you to hear them directly (just a search away) from Potawatomi, Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, Cherokee or Mohawk voices~ in particular, "The Gift of Strawberries", a chapter from Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass 🍓❤️🍓

W️hile researching strawberry/heart berry wisdom for this berry-hued ribbon skirt beauty, I wondered my own place in finding and carrying it, and found this poem by Pastor Maren C. Tirabassi~

It is June, heart-berry moon,
not that I have any right
to the old story
of the healing ways of Ode’imin,
the wisdoms of Nookomis,
except to learn,
to be one who sits in the circle,
not at its center,
to hear the storyteller.

European American born,
I listen to new strawberry wisdom –

We who have been takers
can no longer reach out and grab
whatever we want,
but, bending very low,
find and pick what heals us all.

And things most precious
will be brief.
They come silently
and, no matter how busy we are,
and we are a busy people,
they must be tasted
now, in the season they are ripe.

And this, too, perhaps,
we learn —
to call summer by our neighbors’ names –
not July and August, but
miskomini-giizis,
red-raspberry moon and
miin(ikaa)-giizis, blueberry moon,

for days are best lived
not under the names of conquerors
but by fruit of the spirit.
🍓❤️🍓

Prairie rose, Rosa arkansana, is named for the Arkansas River 🌾 From headwaters near Leadville, Colorado, it flows down the plains through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas 🌾 Here, a Southern Cheyenne beauty tends her prairie rose garden 🌾🩷🌾

Aquilegia coerulea

Queen of Colorado 💙👑💙

flowering season: mid-June - mid-August

Rocky Mountain Mariposa Lily, Calochortus gunnisonii

Mariposa is Spanish for butterfly, and these sweet beauties are also found fluttering through summer meadows 🤍 The species of mariposa lily found here along Colorado's Front Range is Gunnison's Mariposa, sharing a name with the Gunnison River, and the leader of a railroad expedition through the Black Canyon. She is also called sego, or seego (or sikoo), Shoshone for edible bulb; in Ute, si'go or siyoo 🤍 Her bulbs can be roasted or boiled, or dried, then ground and cooked into a soup or porridge. Her petals vary from white to purple, and her home is in the foothills and mountain meadows 🤍

Sego Lily, Calochortus nuttallii 

Her name, Sego (or seego or sikoo) is Shoshone for edible bulb 🤍 Shoshone and Ute peoples harvested and ate the bulbs of this pretty lily~ boiled, roasted, or dried, then ground and cooked into a soup or porridge 🤍 They taught early Mormon immigrants (in present day Utah) how to find and use the bulbs to survive winter and times of famine. Sego lily is recognized as the state flower of Utah because of her historic role, but her significance to Shoshone, Ute, and other Indigenous cultures long predates this designation 🤍

Prince’s Pine, Chimaphilia umbellata

She grows 4-10 inches tall in small patches in dry woodlands. Her name Chimaphila, "winter-loving", refers to her evergreen leaves. Her name Pipsissewa is from a Cree word, pipsiskwee, meaning "it breaks into small pieces", for her traditional use in treating kidney stones. She has antibacterial and diuretic properties~ teas and poultices made with her leaves were (and still are) used by Indigenous peoples all over North America, and other folk healers and herbalists, to treat a variety of ailments. Her wintergreen-scented leaves can also be used as flavoring for candy and root beer, and in Mexico, they are used in the preparation of navaitai, an alcoholic drink made from sprouted maize. Although her leaves are green year-round, she takes a significant portion of nutrition from fungi in the forest soil around her.

Her dress is based on antique dolls, dressed by Woodland Cree women in the clothing of an adult female of the Woodland Cree nation from the late 1700s and early 1800s, shown here.

A Tsitsistas (Cheyenne) mother and daughter enjoy a sunset from a patch of wholeleaf paintbrush, Castilleja integra.

A Diné (Navajo) woman wraps herself in a stand of Gaillardia pulchella, called blanketflower, sundance, or firewheel.

Gayfeather, Snakeroot, Liatris punctata

flowering season: July - October

She grows across much of the Great Plains and Midwest of the US and Canada, and part of northern Mexico, and found in a variety of habitats~ ponderosa pine forests, sagebrush and chaparral, grassland and prairie. Punctata means spotted, her thin leaves are covered in tiny dots of resin. She's slow-growing and long-lived, some over 35 years old. She's extremely drought tolerant, with a taproot that can reach up to 16 feet deep into prairie soil; and also fire tolerant, able to resprout from rhizomes (a type of underground stem). She's helpful in revegetating prairie habitats and in reclaiming mining soil. In Colorado, she's the host plant for a hemiparasitic sister, Wholeleaf Paintbrush (Castilleja integra). She is food for elk, deer, and pronghorn, and favored by pollinators, including the rare Pawnee montane skipper.

Kiowa people gathered her carrot-flavored roots in the spring when they are sweet, and baked them over a fire. Other Plains tribes applied her mashed roots to snake bites, and dried roots were burned like incense to relieve headaches and sore throats. Blackfeet people boiled the root and applied it to swellings, and Omaha people dried and powdered the root, making a poultice for inflammations. Here, a Kiowa woman welcomes a prairie sunrise (or sunset?) from a stand of bright dotted blazing star. 

Ghost Flower, Indian Pipe, Monotropa uniflora~ she has no chlorophyll, elegantly blooming in dark places in symbiosis with the trees and fungi around her.