The brightest thing in the forest right now

Orange Honeysuckle ~ Lonicera ciliosa

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Pretty commoner

Red clover ~ Trifolium pratense

Three-spot Mariposa Lily

Pointedtip Mariposa Lily, Three-spot Mariposa Lily, Baker’s Mariposa ~ Calochortus apiculatus ~ Found only in Canada’s British Columbia and Alberta and in Oregon, Idaho and Montana in the U.S.

Skyrocket ~ Just in time for the 4th

Skyrocket ~ Ipomopsis aggregata

Sure ’nuff!

Well, they said there was snow above 5,000 feet…this photo was taken at noon today at 5,500 feet

It’s not easy finding white flowers in this weather.

Beargrass and huckleberries

Beargrass is beginning to bloom now in the western Montana high country,

Beargrass ~ Xerophyllum tenax

and then thinking of bears… As I sat eating my lunch along a trail the other day, enjoying the cool breeze that was sweeping up the mountain and the beauty of spring in the wild country, I watched dozens of bumble bees gathering nectar from and pollinating the huckleberry bushes that are now in bloom

Huckleberry ~ Vaccinium membranaceum

and the thought occurred to me that in the spring of the year a bee which weighs about half a gram gets sustenance from the blossoms and at the same time pollinates the plants, then in the autumn of the year a bear which can weigh up to 1,700 pounds gets sustenance from the berries of those plants and spreads their seeds; what extremes in the annual cycle of a plant!