Yellowbell re-visited

March 28, 2010

Yellowbell re-visited

Filed under: Flowers, Montana, Munson Creek, Outdoors, Photography, Photos, Pictures, Wildflowers — Tags: (Fritillaria pudica), Goldcup, Montana, Outdoors, Yellow fritillary, Yellowbell — montucky @ 8:27 pm

On a brief visit this morning to Munson Creek, all I could find blooming besides the ubiquitous Buttercups were these Yellowbells, and I was finally able to get a photo of one that I like.

Upon thinking about the old rhyme “April showers bring May flowers” I’m beginning to be a bit concerned that, because of the very dry winter, a completely dry March and a dry forecast for April, it may be a very bad year for wildflowers in this region.

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Comments (16)

16 Comments »

I hope some rain comes your way… we are getting a Spring storm here – yowza! The wind is a blowin’! Pretty bell flower!

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Comment by Stacey Dawn — March 29, 2010 @ 2:59 am

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- Yes, we are now participating in that storm, Stacey. We had some wind in the evening and around 5:30 am we had some rain, about 1/4 inch, but that’s the most we’ve had so this year. Thanks for sending it our way!
  
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  Comment by montucky — March 29, 2010 @ 8:49 am
  
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I do hope you get a good wildflower show. You had a fairly dry winter too, right?

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Comment by Bo Mackison — March 29, 2010 @ 7:41 am

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- W had a very dry winter, Bo. The grasses and brush, especially on the south slopes are tinder dry and we’ve already had two wildland fires. We are geared up for an early and long fire season.
  
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  Comment by montucky — March 29, 2010 @ 8:51 am
  
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yellow bell…can’t wait to see one.

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Comment by burstmode — March 29, 2010 @ 11:59 am

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- I know you’d love them but you might have to travel some to see them. Their distribution chart on USDA Plants shows: Distribution:
  USA: CA , CO , ID , MT , NV , NM , ND , OR , UT , WA , WY
  Canada: AB , BC
  
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  Comment by montucky — March 29, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
  
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Nice photograph. We had a wet winter and are seeing a fair number of flowers. Of course, I had to mow the lawn several weeks earlier than usual.

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Comment by knightofswords — March 29, 2010 @ 3:02 pm

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- I guess all of the precipitation went to the south of us and hit you pretty good down there. We are getting a little rain today and tonight, but not nearly enough. There is supposed to be some good snowfall in the higher mountains though.
  
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  Comment by montucky — March 29, 2010 @ 7:32 pm
  
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Such a pretty flower and appropriately named. I like how the stem bends over with the flower as if in quiet repose. We’ve had double in inches of snowfall here in our area of Kansas breaking records. I wonder how the spring will be and if it will swing to the drought stage. I really need to get out and photograph the wildflowers this year!

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Comment by Anna Surface — March 29, 2010 @ 5:24 pm

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- The species name of this is “pudica” and it means ‘bashful’.
  
  I guess so much depends on El Nino conditions as far as rainfall is concerned.
  
  With all of your snow, you should have a great year for wildflowers I would think.
  
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  Comment by montucky — March 29, 2010 @ 7:36 pm
  
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I hope you get wildflowers! We’ve had so much rain and now it’s going to rain again this week.

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Comment by Candace — March 30, 2010 @ 1:30 am

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- I hope we do too! We did get some rain yesterday, about a half inch, but that’s not enough to do much. The Arizona desert should be beautiful this spring though.
  
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  Comment by montucky — March 30, 2010 @ 10:06 am
  
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Very pretty captures & I’m so sorry there’s been no rain, if only Mother Nature would disperse the rain evenly, then you could have some of the rain the Northeast is getting that they don’t need.
Hopefully Spring will still bring blooms your way, though.

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Comment by Tricia — March 30, 2010 @ 7:37 am

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- Yes, I sure wish we had some of the rain that has been a real problem in other areas. Perhaps yesterday’s rain will help the grasses, but I put a shovel in the ground in a grassy area, and only the top 1.5 inches was wet; below that it was powder dry. That’s terrible for this time of year.
  
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  Comment by montucky — March 30, 2010 @ 2:08 pm
  
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Sorry about the wildfires and rain issues. Yet, doesn’t several species need a “cleansing by fire” in order to be prolific? Like for instance, the Ponderosa Pine? Perhaps the areas cleansed by fire will benefit, even though fire can be so dangerous? I know you are on the response team, so wouldn’t “wish” fire upon anything. Just be careful and take care of yourself.

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Comment by Iona — April 11, 2010 @ 2:53 pm

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- Yes, there are several species of trees that actually must have fire to procreate, and it helps many of the grasses as well. Faire has always been a natural thing within the forests: what makes it so dangerous now is the number of houses that have been built at the edges of the forest. Not as bad here as in California, but the problem is growing.
  
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  Comment by montucky — April 11, 2010 @ 7:38 pm
  
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