Early Spring on the High Plateau: Cousins of Familiar Things

Innkeeping in Boulder, CO., my wife and I expected to enjoy the high mountain meadows of the Rocky Mts. during the summer. Instead, and after a winter of mind-numbing, sedentary boredom, we decided to move on. Suddenly faced with the prospect of packing and moving, we also hoped to find a few early spring wildflowers during a not very springy April. The disappointment we felt at missing out on some of those high elevation Rocky Mt. wildflower meadows would have to be assuaged with what few blossom we could find between snow showers. We got lucky.

First there was the Golden Banner, the flower at the top of my list. I wrote about that last week. This week I'm writing about some familiar-looking things that were, in fact, cousins of familiar things.

The dandelions we saw weren't dandelions at all, or at least not those ol' familiar dandelions my mother once had me do battle with in our lawn. The yellow violets along the path were possibly not one of the many species of yellow violets we've seen over the years. The Canada Violets seemed to have a little more pizzazz than those back east. The bluebells ... well, since when did bluebells grow out in the open like this? And there was a spiderwort and a wallflower that probably weren't the same old thing.

The Yellow Salsify and Ragwort and a few other things, they were the same ol' thing, but the others I mentioned? They were something new.

There are many species of bluebells west of the Mississippi; in the Pacific States they are called lungworts - Bugle Lungwort (Mertensia oblongifolia), Trumpet Lungwort (M. longifolia), Oregon Lungwort (M. bella) to name three - but in Colorado, some of them are known as chiming bells.

On our hike above Boulder, my wife and I found two of the 35 species that bloom in the Rocky Mts., Tall Chiming Bells (M. ciliata) and Lanceleaf Chiming Bells (M. lanceolata). It was the latter that was growing out in the open.

Lanceleaf Chiming Bells are small plants, growing only to about a foot, with flowers about an inch long. The leaves are (of course) lance-shaped, soft, and have a prominent center vein. It blooms from midspring into August, and is common in dry open areas from the foothills up into the alpine elevations. In spite of its obvious differences when compared to the Virginia Bluebells (M. virginica) of Ohio woodlands, the

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