wildflower walk, early may

i’m finally kinda sorta making my way through some of my photo backlog. here are pictures from the idaho botanical gardens “wildflower walks,” may 5.

this is a native plant called bitterbrush. ones that are my height are roughly a hundred years old. their yellow flowers bloom around mother’s day.

view of the city from the foothills, with the old penitentiary in the foreground. i thought it had been out of service for a long, long time, but jeanne informed me it was in operation as recently as the 1970s. she said some former inmates guide tours there. i’d love to tour it someday.

we got to witness a dramatic solar halo (or “sundog,”) caused by high cirrus clouds made of ice crystals.

this is biscuitroot. i first came across this plant on a hike in mccall and i thought it was some kind of wild dill. the guide said she had dug some of these plants out of the ground with taproots as big as her leg. native americans dried the roots and ground them into flour to make a type of large, flat biscuit. here’s an interesting article about them from mother earth news.

hermit milkvetch, a member of the legume family.

a large insect gall i found attached to some rubber rabbitbrush. i think it looks a lot like mister magoo, don’t you?

i took a lot of photos of arrowleaf balsamroot. it’s one of my favorites. i learned you can eat the seeds (similar to sunflower seeds--they’re related), and the leaves are a bit like celery. native americans used the sap as an antiseptic.