Fireweed

Fireweed always provides a bitter-sweet feeling for me, but it does proffer the choice of contemplating beauty or tragedy in the ashes of what was once a bright green forest scene.

For some reason I have always viewed them as whole flowers, usually large groups of whole flowers. Today, perhaps because the drought that is holding Montana in its clutches has kept these beautiful flowers to a minimum and the large groups weren’t in evidence as I hiked in the Patrick’s Knob roadless area, I looked closely at a single blossom and I will never look at fireweed in quite the same way again.

Lit by the sun, a stalk of flowers creates a light and cheerful effect.

But when I found one in deep shade and focused on a single blossom, it showed me it can have a totally different character.