Milkweed seedpods are beautiful and unique. Milkweed, Asclepias spp., is well-known for attracting monarch butterflies. Bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds are attracted to this plant’s flowers. They produce abundant nectar.
In the fall, milkweed seedpods mature and split open. The seeds inside are attached to white floss called coma. This floss allows them to be carried long distances by the wind.
Fun fact: During World War II, when the supply of kapok was cut off by Japan, milkweed floss was used as a substitute to fill life jackets.
Today I’m featuring photographs of blazingstars near and far.
The first picture shows the Sierra blazingstar, or saffron blazing star, Mentzelia crocea. I took this picture in Kings Canyon National Park, California. This 3-foot tall plant blooms from April to June. I like the numerous delicate stamens in the middle of each flower. It is classified as an annual wildflower.
This blazingstar grows in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. It grows in a relatively small area of California. It is endemic to that region.
The next photo shows the giant blazingstar, or smoothstem blazingstar, Mentzelia laevicaulis. I took this photo at Pilot Butte State Scenic Viewpoint, Oregon. Pilot Butte is an extinct cinder cone in Bend, Oregon. This species grows from 3-6 feet tall and blooms from June to September. The petals are narrower on their flowers, but they still have a lot of stamens. It is classified as a biennial or short-lived perennial wildflower.
The giant blazingstar grows from southern Canada through the western United States. It’s much more widespread than the Sierra blazingstar.
As I noted on a previous post, the flowers stay open from mid-morning through the night. Blazingstars attract pollinators during evening hours, including hawk moths. The giant blazingstar can also self-pollinate.
Today I’m sharing a couple photos of a dwarf purple monkeyflower up close. This tiny flower is blossoming now in my High Desert yard near Bend, Oregon. They bloom from May to August. In years with ample precipitation, this plant produces branches bearing dozens of flowers.
The dwarf purple monkeyflower, Diplacus nanus or Mimulus nanus, is a native plant that grows in parts of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, and Wyoming. It grows in sagebrush-steppe and open pine forest habitats.
To show just how small they are, I photographed two plants next to a quarter.
This week, the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is to show your go-to places. For me, I’ll never get enough of seeing the wonder of Yellowstone. Every time I visit the national park, I see amazing new sights.
The wonder of Yellowstone fauna
When visiting the park, I often see bison, pronghorn, and elk. I know exactly where to find the Sandhill Cranes and Mountain Bluebirds. Ravens and killdeer are common. But sometimes you get to see creatures that are not as common. I’ve had memorable encounters with badgers, foxes, and snowshoe hares.
Flora at Yellowstone
In the spring and summer, you may catch glimpses of wildflowers in bloom. Gentian and Indian paintbrush brighten the landscape. Meadows are filled with vibrant green grass.
The wonder of Yellowstone thermal features
The thermal features are one of the things that distinguishes this park from all others. Grand Prismatic Hot Spring is the largest and most colorful. Morning Glory’s yellow edge shines like a spring flower. The water of Artemis is brilliant blue in color. The trail at Artists’ Paintpots wanders through several features.
Yellowstone’s landscapes
The landscapes are big and bold at Yellowstone. The Yellowstone River cuts through canyons in dramatic waterfalls. Storms brew over Yellowstone Lake. The Lamar Valley hosts vast herds of wildlife.
Today I’m sharing a couple waterlily paintings and a photo I created. I attempted to paint the waterlily using a traditional Chinese style. Artisans train for years to perfect this type of painting. My first efforts at Chinese brush painting pale in comparison.
In the first painting, I used watercolor paint on a smooth cold press paper. Since I like showing a lot of detail in my artwork, this type of painting, where less is more, was challenging. This was my third attempt at doing this style of painting.
In the second painting, I used acrylic paints on a mixed media slightly grained paper.
Before doing the waterlily paintings, I familiarized myself with the brushes using black ink. The quality of brushes varies, but sets can be purchased online at low costs.
Here are some of the exercises I did with ink using hard and soft brushes. I really enjoyed doing these exercises. When using some of these techniques, you hold the brush straight up and down instead of at an angle. I used The Chinese Brush Painting Bible by Jane Dwight as a guide.
Inkstones and Inksticks
I recently decided to purchase an inkstone and an inkstick. You grind the inksticks on the inkstones with a little water to make ink. In the Chinese period dramas I’ve watched, they frequently feature characters grinding ink. The inkstone I purchased is of a simple design, but some are elaborate works of art.
I bought an inkstick because you can vary the density of color more than you can with traditional bottled ink. To see the ancient method used to create inksticks, watch this FASCINATING video. The oldest Chinese inkstick artifacts date back to the 12th century BC.
Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.
Today I’m sharing a fringed gentian drawing I created from a photo. I used colored pencils for this drawing. Originally, I planned to paint over the drawing with water since I had used watercolor pencils. However, I decided to leave the drawing as is because I liked how the texture of the lines turned out.
Did you know that the fringed gentian, Gentianopsis detonsa, is the official flower of Yellowstone National Park?
If you visit the park in the spring, you’ll see lots of wildflowers in full bloom. We were there in the beginning of June 2024.
I took this picture at Black Sand Basin, just west of the Old Faithful area. As soon as I saw these blooming beside the boardwalk, I knew I wanted to do a fringed gentian drawing to try to capture their beauty.
I previously featured another photograph of fringed gentian and showed how they look with three different photo processing techniques. These flowers look pretty, no matter how they are presented.
Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.
This Oregon sunshine bouquet was growing in my yard. This plant is common in a variety of habitats in western North America.
Oregon sunshine, Eriophyllum lanatum, is a shrubby perennial that grows well in light shade to full sun. They’re obviously drought tolerant, since I don’t water this part of our High Desert property at all. These plants reach a size of one to two feet wide and one to two feet tall. I like their bright yellow, long-lasting flowers. Pollinators and birds like them as well.
It grows so well here, I end up pulling most of the plants like weeds. One year, I decided to just let them grow in a large gravel-covered area. The thick “lawn” of plants, shown below, prevented some of our common weeds from growing.
I think of spring as being a season in flux, constantly shifting between the coolness of winter and the warmth of summer. Purple flowers, part warm red and part cool blue, reflect this indecision.
Cheery little phlox flowers blossom in profusion when spring arrives.
Tall, graceful penstemon pull in passing pollinators.
Today I’m sharing a pen-and-ink drawing I did of wild sunflowers. These were growing at Wawawai Canyon, in southeast Washington State.
Here’s the picture from my archives I was working from.
The wild sunflowers in the photo below were growing on the east side of Steens Mountain in southern Oregon. There are 52 species of sunflower in North America.
Today I’m sharing a primrose painting, photo, and poem I created. When I was on a field trip in early June, we saw a “field” of this plant in bloom near Crack in the Ground. Tufted evening-primrose, Oenothera caespitosa, usually only bloom at night but on that day, dark clouds filled the skies.
Here’s a watercolor I painted of the flowers.
And here’s the work in progress in my little studio space.
This is the close up photograph I took of these beautiful flowers near Crack in Ground. I’m growing evening-primrose in my landscaping and, so far, the always hungry resident mule deer have not discovered them. 🤞
Here is a Sijo poem about these remarkable flowers.
Awakened when the moon rises over the silent desert Flowers in sandy soil open, shining like pale lanterns Enchanting the world with intoxicating scent, until dawn breaks
Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.
I saw this gorgeous red Indian paintbrush at Great Basin National Park in Nevada. This park doesn’t get as many visitors as others nearby, but it’s definitely worth a visit. We enjoyed our drive up to the the 10,000 foot level of Wheeler Peak. We drove by ancient stands of singleleaf pinyon pine, Great Basin bristlecone pine, and curlleaf mountain mahogany covered with a dusting of spring snow. These brilliant wildflowers were near the beginning of the 12-mile long Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive.
I’m sharing photos I took of fringed gentian in Yellowstone National Park last June. We like to visit in the spring so we can take pictures of the wildflowers in bloom. This gentian can be seen on the trails overlooking Old Faithful. It’s the official flower of the park.
I’ll be showing how I processed this picture three ways with Corel PaintShop Pro 2021. Prior to trying out the various effects, I increased the brightness and sharpness slightly.
The first two show the original image and the same picture with a geometric effect. For this image I went to Effects>Geometric>Circle>Default>Wrap. It makes it look like a delicate ornament surrounded by more flowers.
The next two show the original image and a vignette effect. For this image I went to Effects>Photo Effects>Vignette. I darkened the frame slightly. This a great effect to use for flowers since you can blur out the background and sharpen the main subject.
These Hells Canyon Overlook views were taken in the Hells Canyon Recreation area in northeastern Oregon. Though more people are familiar with the Grand Canyon, Hells Canyon is the deepest river gorge in North America. He Devil Peak, on the East Rim, stands 8,043 feet above the Snake River, at the bottom of the gorge.
You can learn about this unique geological feature at the Hell’s Canyon Creek Visitor Center in Imnaha. When we visited in June a couple of years ago, the road to the center was still closed due to snow so check ahead of time.
Visitors seeking Hells Canyon views in the spring and early summer are rewarded by a wide variety of wildflowers in bloom at the scenic overlook. See Hells Canyon in the Spring for closer views of these beauties.
Wildflowers in the desert sunshine Emerging in harsh conditions Shining with an inner light Colorful expressions Jewels in the sand Ephemeral Presences Fleeting Views
Wildflowers in the desert photographs taken at Gray Butte, Oregon in the springtime.
In early May 2017, we visited the national parks in Utah. With temperatures in the 90s, we didn’t exactly avoid the desert’s heat, but we were happy to see Arches National Park in bloom.
These plants grow well under the hot, sunny conditions. Here are a few of the plants we saw in bloom. Some are big and bold; others are small and subtle.
Blue flax flowers up close in my garden. These delicate flowers are difficult to photograph because they have a habit of turning away from the camera. I guess they are a little camera shy!
You may have heard of this plant referred to in the classic western, Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey. But did you know purple sage is not actually in the sagebrush family? It’s a type of sage in the mint family, Lamiaceae, and one of its common names is “mint sage.” If you crush the leaves in your hand you’ll be able to tell why.
I’ve seen purple sage, Salvia dorrii, in various high desert locations in eastern Oregon. Gray Butte, just northeast of Smith Rock, is a great place to see this native shrub in full bloom.
These wild buckwheat blossoms were photographed in the High Desert near Bend, Oregon. I believe this is a variety of Eriogonum umbellatum, the sulfur flower. Their yellow blossoms brighten up the desert like little rays of sunshine!
Hells Canyon National Recreation Area is tucked into the northeastern corner of Oregon and the western edge of Idaho. We visited Hells Canyon in the spring last year. At the overlook, the meadows were carpeted in wildflowers. Perfect timing for pictures!
View to the east
Many different types of flowers were in full bloom.
Meadow full of wildlfowers
We had great weather to take in the panoramic view. The Snake River winds through this canyon nearly 8,000 feet below the canyon rim. Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge in North America, is almost 2,000 feet deeper than the Grand Canyon.
This small groundcover plant is actually a type of dogwood. These striking plants range in height from eight inches, as in the bunchberry, to the 60-foot tall Pacific dogwood tree. Beautiful in any size!
We stopped at the Kiger Gorge overlook on Steens Mountain in August and saw tiny flowers at our feet. These are prostrate lupines, Lupinus lepidus var. lobbii. I put my hand in the picture just to give you an idea of the scale.
This native plant grows in alpine habitats. The tiny blue or purple flowers measure 1/3 inch across. The plant grows to a height of 4-6 inches. Another common name for this low profile plant is “dwarf lupine.” Lupines have distinctive leaves that are almost star-like in form. The seedpods are often covered with soft “hair.”
Sunflowers & stagecoaches? You may be wondering how those two things go together.
Last August we explored the Steens Mountain area by car. Did you know you can drive all the way around this 50-mile long mountain and to its 9,700-foot peak at certain times of the year? The views from up there are breathtaking!
Common sunflower
The following pictures are from the dirt road on the east side of Steens Mountain. Common sunflowers, Helianthus annus L., were in full bloom along the road.
As their name implies, common sunflowers are common throughout the conterminous United States and in parts of Canada and Mexico. Sunflowers have been introduced in other parts of North America and throughout the world. They occur in a wide variety of habitats including prairies, roadsides, near railroad right-of-ways, savannas, and forest edges.
I saw these blazing star beauties at the top of Pilot Butte in Bend, Oregon last August. Pilot Butte is an extinct volcano that is a state scenic viewpoint. It’s a great place to visit for a 360 degree high desert view! You can see in the photos that these flowers are growing on cinder rocks. The Sisters volcanic peaks are in the background of the last picture.
The Lens-Artists photo challenge today is “unique.” I thought of several unique sights I’ve seen in Oregon that fit this category.
“Super 8” Petroglyph
Our guide in Harney County referred to this ancient petroglyph as the Super 8. Do you see a resemblance to an old movie camera? Petroglyphs are carved into stone while pictographs are painted onto stone.
Hairy clematis flowers
I saw these hairy clematis flowers at the Hell’s Canyon Overlook earlier this month. This unusual flower has a lot of common names including lion’s beard, leather flower, vase flower, and sugar bowl. They look similar to prairie smoke flowers featured in a previous post.
Great Basin Spadefoot Toad
I can’t help but think of the words “unique sights” when I recall this toad I found in my high desert yard. I thought it was so interesting that I wrote a short story about it called The Toad Queen.
The sand lily, also known as the star lily, is a delicate perennial wildflower found in western North America. It grows in sagebrush deserts, open montane forests, and in sandy and rocky soils.
The plant above is growing near sagebrush in an uncultivated part of my property near Bend, Oregon. There is only one plant and I look forward to it blooming every spring.
The fringed gentian, Gentianopsis thermalis, grows in meadows, bogs, and on moist ground. This species prefers growing in warm places and it’s common near geysers and hot springs in Yellowstone National Park. It is the official flower of the park.
This plant grows to a height of 4-16 inches and blooms in May through August. This annual has purple flowers 1.5-3 inches in length. The showy flowers are fringed along the edges.
Fringed gentians can be found across northern Canada and south through the Rocky Mountains and into parts of New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada.
Native Americans used gentians to treat headaches and as an antidote to witchcraft.
Fun fact: The flowers curl up and close on cloudy days leaving just the tops visible. The closed flowers resemble a small windmill.
