Black-eyed Susans run riot in the Bridger Range north of Bozeman. At the height of summer wildflower season, which sets the tone of the great outdoors, how many different species can you identify? And how come so many know more mammals and birds than plants? Photo by Todd Wilkinson
NOTE: January 2020 was a big snow month in some corners of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. At the top of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in the Tetons, 168 inches of snow fell breaking a 45-year record at the Rendezvous Bowl plot. Already, Susan Marsh is anticipating where she'll go to find the first emerging wildflower shoots. What's your favorite spot?
by Susan Marsh
In the depths of winter (eight below this morning), I am thinking about wildflowers.
The first ones will arrive on dry south-facing slopes as early as March.
Go to the Madison River west of Bozeman and instead of hiking the (wonderfully snow-free) Beartrap Canyon trail, continue over the highway bridge, turn onto the dirt road to the right, park, and start wandering up Red Mountain.
You’ll see a golden eagle nest tucked into some of the oldest rocks on the continent, perhaps finding a loose chunk of graphic granite along the way. Mountain bluebirds dart overhead as they check out potential nesting cavities in twisted snags. Deer scatter upslope at your approach from the dense junipers along a talus-mantled draw.
The views of the river and the mountains beyond improve with each footstep as you scramble into the sky.
This is the time to start looking down if your attention has somehow failed to be directed toward the plate-sized clusters of bright magenta that surround you: Douglasia montana, or dwarf mountain primrose.
Among the dark rocks, straw-brown grass and dusty snow, they glow.
A March meander up the slopes of Red Mountain became an annual ritual when I lived in Montana.
The first flowers of spring in Jackson Hole are not so easy to see and rarely do I find many before April. But remembering my surprise and delight in seeing those patches—no, fields—of Douglasia, I’m always out when the lower elevations begin to lose their snow.
My new “Red Mountain” is Blacktail Butte in Grand Teton National Park.
Last spring came late and so did the wildflowers. In mid-April some botanist friends and I meandered up the southeast side of Blacktail in search of flowers or buds. Even newly emerging leaves would be enough to reassure us of the cycle of seasons and renewal after a long, snow-bound winter.
We spent more than an hour crossing the windswept slope, climbing gradually and stopping often to peer into the crevices between rocks.
“Isn’t it nice,” Frances asked, “that we are able to slow down?”
I agreed, but only later realized how deeply her question struck me.
When I was younger and more goal-oriented I must have bypassed thousands of small wonders along the trail as I strode toward my destination. Only after taking in the view and mountain air did I feel ready to pay more attention to what was directly at hand. Only then did I notice the variety of miniature cushion plants surrounding me, their insect pollinators, and a dark curl of pika scat on a rock.
Top: Orogenia linearifolia (Indian potato). Photo by Wallace Keck/NPS. Just above: Douglasia montana (aka dwarf mountain primrose). Photo courtesy Henry Mulligan, Wikipedia/Creative Commons license
At 67 I have slowed down, which is not the same as stopping. I can still climb a hill at a decent clip but I’m more interested in strolling. I’ve learned to enjoy the journey as well as the destination, and for that I can thank Douglasia. Granted, it’s hard to miss, unlike the miniscule Orogenia that is among the first bloomers in my area.
Nonetheless, by now I’ve developed an eye for Orogenia from long practice and my ritual of seeking out the first flowers of spring. I have enough personal stories involving that inconspicuous variety of parsley to have learned how to spot it as if it were as showy as the Douglasia.
One year a honeybee landed on the ground where I was sitting and I wondered why it was attracted to that spot. When the bee flew off I had my answer: the Orogenia was so small the bee had completely hidden it from view.
Another year brought a surprise as I noticed the Orogenia first, its cluster of flowers the size of a pea, and leaned in for a better look and in so doing I scared off an emerald-green hairstreak butterfly that had been nectaring on the flowers with folded wings.
At this point I hope to be recovering from a human malady known as plant-blindness.
Our inability to notice plants is widespread according to researchers who study such things, so much so that the term “plant blindness,” coined by a pair of botanists in the late 90s, has entered the general lexicon. It’s similar to the obliviousness we render to insects and small creatures of the earth and soil.
At this point I hope to be recovering from a human malady known as plant-blindness. It’s similar to the obliviousness we render to insects and small creatures of the earth and soil.
Together these lapses of noticing result in a general lack of appreciation for what holds this earthly biosphere together. I hate to break bad news, but I suspect earthworms and earwigs are more ecologically important than we are.
As mammals, we’re used to noticing other mammals.
Birds count too, especially the ones you can see rather than those that peep from the treetops. We distinguish one kind of critter from another even if we can’t name it right away by noticing features at a glance—the stride, the color and size, perhaps the shape of ears and tail, and if it’s a close encounter, the eyes. It’s bilaterally symmetrical and has hair, so another mammal is more obviously kin than a plant is.
Our mental images of animals are sharp, probably because it served our ancestors to tell an antelope from a dire wolf. Plants grow together in groups of multiple species, all of them green. They don’t run away or prey on us, so we can ignore them until we need one for food or wood or medicine, and then it remains in place, silently allowing our harvest.
Just a smidgen of summer wildflower diversity in the mountains of Greater Yellowstone. Photo by Todd Wilkinson
According to a report to the Society for Conservation Biology [Plant blindness and the implications for plant conservation by Mung Balding and Kathryn J.H. Williams, 24 April 2016], “Experimental research and surveys have demonstrated higher preference for, superior recall of, and better visual detection of animals compared with plants. This bias has been attributed to perceptual factors such as lack of motion by plants and the tendency of plants to visually blend together but also to cultural factors such as a greater focus on animals in formal biological education.”
Plant blindness leads to ignorance and underappreciation, which leads to decreasing concern about plant conservation. We know a lot about animals, and there’s a growing understanding of the importance of insect pollinators, but what about the plants?
They can tell us much about the health of an ecosystem and the results of a changing climate.
Forestry, range science, land restoration, biofuel research, medicine, and food science are among the utilitarian fields of study that depend on some knowledge of botany.
But in many universities, botany is no longer offered as a major. It’s more likely to be combined with general biology, range science, or forestry, if not eliminated altogether.
Botanists are no longer being hired by agencies like the Forest Service at the rate they once were, nor are ecologists and landscape architects. Some of this is due to reduced budgets, but there is also a trend toward replacing plant ecology positions with traditional timber and livestock-related range jobs.
Botanists are no longer being hired by agencies like the Forest Service at the rate they once were, nor are ecologists and landscape architects. Some of this is due to reduced budgets, but there is also a trend toward replacing plant ecology positions with traditional timber and livestock-related range jobs.
I worry that we’re losing our relationship to the verdant world.
While driving home from Blacktail Butte, we were slowed by a line of cars parked akimbo in the road. Long lenses and binoculars were aimed at a cow moose browsing willows on the far side of the Gros Ventre River. She was reaching for those high wands of willow with thin and supple bark, flowing xylem, and perhaps a leaf bud or two.
I imagined gathering the group of moose-watchers an hour later and asking them to sketch what they saw. The moose of course, would come to mind, the subject of their interest. Whether capable artists or not, they would draw something recognizable.
But would they include the river, the cottonwoods, or the willow in their sketch?
How about the last plant you paid attention to? Did you notice it more than usual because of a story taking place there (a squirrel, a bird) or the way sunlight shone in its branches? What do you remember about the plant itself?
I imagined gathering the group of moose-watchers an hour later and asking them to sketch what they saw. The moose of course, would come to mind, the subject of their interest. Whether capable artists or not, they would draw something recognizable. But would they include the river, the cottonwoods, or the willow in their sketch? How about the last plant you paid attention to?
Robin Wall Kimmerer (author of Braiding Sweetgrass, from which this anecdote comes) reports that her botany 101 students sit glassy-eyed or dozing when she talks excitedly about photosynthesis in the classroom.
As a botanist, she can’t believe they aren’t enthralled by this miracle.
She comes to realize these eighteen-year olds have no personal relationships to plants. No back yard vegetable garden from which they might have learned about plant growth and its delicious results; they were raised on wilted grocery store greens and wax-covered apples.
So she took them outside, always the best place to learn.
Lights went on.
An art major talked about the beauty and symmetry and unity of the design when the 3 Sisters (corn, beans and squash) grew together. It wasn’t just about the fruit—the plants themselves were beautiful.
The message is, get out there and look. Sit with the plant, study it with a hand lens, make its acquaintance. Notice the subtle differences in leaf shape between lupine and larkspur. Even if you remember only a handful of common wildflowers, aren’t they a joy to see when they first come into bloom?
Plant blindness can be cured with experience outdoors. Starting early as children helps us avoid it. Overcoming the potential boredom factor in kids used to video games and bright flashing computer screens is one of the benefits of nature walks.
Town parks and arboretums are good starting points, and as Dawn Sanders of Sweden’s University of Gothenburg recommends, it’s good to include plants more often in art projects. She has collaborated on such projects at the Gothenburg Botanical Garden and has learned to use visual art and stories to help students engage.
Soon they start asking questions. How old do plants get? Why does one grow the way it does? Where can I find it?
For adults with an interest, all three states within the Greater Yellowstone region have active native plant societies that offer field trips.
For Susan Marsh and friends, a favorite part of late winter and early spring is to head out "botanizing" in places where hardy wildflowers emerge on windblown south-facing slopes after snowmelt. Imagine the mountains without plant life? Being attentive, she says, opens new worlds and new ways of thinking about nature. Photo courtesy Susan Marsh
Go out with an expert and soak up his or her knowledge, enthusiasm, and love of plants. It’s a pleasure.
Like birdwatching, slowing down and paying attention to plants can be a form of meditation as well as learning. There is a peaceful rhythm about an ascent of a slope that looks devoid of life from a distance, but as you move, you notice more and more. Your eye develops an image that turns an unfamiliar plant into a friend.
You stop to sketch or take a photo, or simply to wonder over how small delicate blooms can exist in one of the harshest sites in the valley. What are its strategies and secrets? Who eats it? Who pollinates or lays eggs on it?
Most of us are used to seeing red when we pick up a newspaper or listen to the evening news: what insanity is befalling us today? Getting outside to see a bit of green is an excellent antidote.
One spring day on Blacktail Butte I discovered two plants that had been unknown to me before: a pale salmon-colored variety of Townsendia (T. leptodes) and a yellow-flowered cushion plant called creeping nailwort (Paronychia sessiliflora), which isn’t listed in the bible of Wyoming botany (get the book Vascular Plants of Wyoming by Robert Dorn) as being found in Teton County.
Finding only one specimen of each species, I considered myself lucky.
Later, and to my great surprise, I noticed them both within a half-mile of my house on a knoll at the east edge of town.
I had been taking walks there for years, thinking I was paying attention to the plant life. But I hadn’t made the acquaintance of these two species, so my eye did not have their image in its memory. Now it does.
Plant blindness is neither universal nor inevitable. Many cultures have strong bonds with plants and consider them kin. While we wait for our own culture to catch up, we can get out there and have a look at what’s coming up in the remnants of last fall’s leaves and the mud from melting snow. We can create our own personal rituals of celebration—the end of winter, the start of another growth year.
We might even be delighted by an unexpected find, like the nailwort and Townsendia on Blacktail Butte, the honeybee and hairstreak on the flowers, and a patch of Douglasia on Red Mountain.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Another book worth checking out is Flora of the Yellowstone: A Guide to Wildflowers, Shrubs, Trees, Ferns and Grass-like Plants of the Greater Yellowstone Region in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming by Whitney Tilt (at right). Available at local bookstores, profits of the book go to support trail and conservation programs of the Gallatin Valley Land Trust.
About Susan Marsh
Susan Marsh spent three decades with the U.S. Forest Service and is today an award-winning writer living in Jackson Hole.
