Sunday, September 6, 2015

Glacier's Wildflowers



The entire park is carpeted with wildflowers.




These guys don't put out seeds, they grow off of rhizones - like iris.  Because of that they survive wildfires easily and are usually the first to start growing again after a fire.  We find them often, but beargrass only blooms every five to seven years, so we appreciate it when we do run across them.  Beargrass also (apparently) can only be found in western North America.  Other common names for bear grass are squaw grass, soap grass, quip-quip and Indian basket grass.  The Indian basket grass and squaw grass I can understand because "squaws" used to use the leaves (long and thin like lillies) to decorate their weaving and clothing.  Why soap grass I dunno.  Quip-quip?  Maybe that's the Indian name for it.  I also know that bears love grazing on wildflowers so maybe they especially like these flowers and search them out.


These blooms may be out of focus, but I wanted you to see the spiny stems and leaves.  I'd bet bears are likin' these as much as the beargrass!

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