I finally pulled over and had a look. Again, I was right (he said, not showing off so much as feeling pretty good about having gotten so familiar with wildflowers that he can recognize something new, even if he's driving by at 55 M.P.H). It was Rocky Mountain Beeplant.
A member of the Caper (Capparaceae) Family, Rocky Mountain Beeplant (Cleome serrulata) is regarded much more favorably than Toadflax. It is even invited into gardens.
It's a plains and foothills kind of a flower, growing from eastern Washington down into central Arizona, and east to the Great Plains from Texas up into Saskatchewan. The seed pods and the three leaflets I found on the plants had me wondering where the banner, wings and keel were on the flowers; it was very pea-like in that regard. The flowers produce large amounts of nectar, much to the delight of bees, and provide us its common name. The entire plant can get as tall as five feet.
In a 1916 report on the Ethnobotany of the Tewa Indians, it was written: This is a very important plant with the Tewa, inasmuch as black paint for pottery decoration is made from it. Large quantities of young plants are collected, usually in July. The plants are boiled well in water; the woody parts are then removed and the decoction is again allowed to boil until it becomes thick and attains a black color. The thick fluid is poured on a board to dry and soon becomes hardened. It may be kept in hard cakes for an indefinite period. When needed these are soaked in hot water until the consistency needed for paint. It is also used as a food. The hardened cakes are soaked in hot water, and then fried in grease.
Some Native Americans boiled the leaves as food as well as to treat stomach aches. During droughts, early Spanish-Americans made tortillas from the not altogether palatable, but nourishing seeds. And of course bees love it. As for me, it was a nice last gasp of color in Northwestern Montana.
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