Balsamroot Extravaganza and the New Trail

The big balsamroot show has begun with fields and fields of flowers near the Jumbo Saddle.  Another development up there is a new trail that takes off switchbacking north from the saddle and replacing a straight-up trail-of-use.  Here is a bit of that trail with Mt. Jumbo and Lolo Peak farther off.  Wild hyacinth, woodland stars, death camas, and paintbrush are blooming, too.  The notable rain recently has greened things up.

 





Here are wild hyacinth (Brodiaea douglasii) above left and woodland star (Lithophragma parviflora), a member of the saxifrage family, on the right.  Saxifrage! 

William Carlos Williams 
 "A Sort of a Song"

Let the snake wait under

his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
— through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

Meadow death camas (Zigadenus venenosus) and paintbrush (Castilleja) are blooming now, too.  Jose Celestino Mutis named this species after his teacher in Cadiz, Spain, Domingo Castillejo (1744-1793).  
 




And balsamroot everywhere.

The new trail leads to new perspectives.  Through the ponderosas, off to the left of the trail in the photo below, you can see Cha-paa-qn (elevation 7996 feet), with a Salish name meaning, according to the Ninemile Ranger District of the Forest Service anyway, "shining peak."

Arrowleaf Balsamroot

About a month after the first leaves and buds of the arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) appeared, flowers on many plants are fully open now.  Schiemann notes that Meriwether Lewis collected a specimen of this plant.  

The grass is greening up, and the meadowlarks sing and sing.


"We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.  We loiter in winter while it is already spring."

HDT, "Spring," Walden

Simple

 


How simple, clean, solid the shape of fritillaries! 





"It is well to find your employment and amusement in simple and homely things."

Henry David Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1856







Yellow fritillaries are still blooming near the saddle, and someone has built a stone spiral around a biscuitroot.