July 24, 2014
June 18, 2014
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.
June 11, 2014
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!
July 7, 2011
Road 5587 (3)
This is the last set of photos from this trip, perhaps a few too many, but after all it was a fairly long distance and a good day for scenery; also hopefully a feeling for the kind of scenery one comes across in an area like that.
This is a zoom shot taken from the same place as the previous photo, done to show the lookout cabin on Eddy Peak about ten miles away, across the Clark Fork valley and in an entirely different mountain range.
Oh, and the Beargrass are starting to bloom already in that area.
Beargrass ~ Xerophyllum tenax
July 3, 2008
Xerophyllum tenax
No other plant resembles Beargrass, Xerophyllum tenax, but to me its appeal is much more than its uniqueness, its size (up to five feet tall) or its beautiful blossoms, but in where it grows, mostly on open ridge tops in the higher elevations of the northwest. For more than sixty summers I’ve felt a thrill, seeing it bloom in the high country of western Montana.
This sentinel is stationed overlooking Siegel Creek Divide and looks down over the Siegel Creek canyon and the Clark Fork River 10 miles away to the north and twenty miles of Nine Mile Creek to the south.
This year has not been a good one for beargrass in this immediate area and so I decided to post a few photos of it now and hope to be fortunate enough to encounter a more lavish display as I visit more high country in the next few weeks.
Montana Outdoors 