A few days ago I showed you some of the flowers that were blooming in Yellowstone. I have some new ones today. I told you stuff happens quickly around here. The bitterroot is Montana’s state flower. It is found on rather dry gravely areas in between the sage brush. It can be found on the dirt road between Mammoth and Gardiner, on the Slough Creek Road, and a number of other areas in the Lamar Valley.
The forget-me-not is a small flower that blooms in quite a few different areas of Yellowstone. It is one of the plants you can find early at lower elevations and later at higher places, such as on Mt. Washburn.
Nuttall’s violet has been blooming for well over a week and will be gone soon. It is common on roadsides and semi-moist areas throughout Yellowstone. It was named for botanist Thomas Nuttall and is one of the few yellow violets
There are a number of yellow daisy-like flowers in Yellowstone but none so common as arrow leaf balsamroot. It can be separated from the other yellow daisy-like flowers by its grayish green arrow shaped leaves. A few days ago there was no balsam root blooming in the park and then literally over night they appeared. There are becoming more common everyday. In a few weeks they will be blanketing the sides of Mt. Washburn.
One of the last things was saw today was a good sized group of bison running down to the Lamar River to a spot we have seen them cross before. I am not sure why this spot is so popular with them, especially this time of year when the river is running high with snow melt. A number of adult and baby bison made it about half way across and then turned around and came back. We saw one baby riding on its mother’s back. That one is going to be herd leader some day. A smart little bugger, even as young as it is.
Beautiful flowers and thank you for the information about them. I’m sure that bison baby riding on his mom’s back was a sight to see.
It was tense watching those bison float down river but the one that got me was the calf that made it across all by itself so then swam back to mom and then it took them three tries to make it back across. That calf must have been tired. Mean to tell you that there are a lot of wildflowers blooming just over the hill at the black bears – towards the river.