Mustard Family
Wallflower, Erysimum asperum, DC.
Flowers, ½ inch in diameter, are formed of 4 petals arranged like a Maltese cross, yellow to orange in color. They are clustered into a round terminal head, the lower flowers of which open first so that usually tubular seed pods (siliques) have formed near the base by the time the top of the cluster is in bloom. Plants are 8 inches or more high, of several stems from one root crown. Grows in foothills, extending down to plains and up through montane zone. Blooms May-July.
The mustards are legion. Fields of them add a yellow note to many western hillsides. They range from weedy poor relations, like shepherd’s purse, to tall, showy spikes of prince’s plume, Stanleya apinnata. Wallflower—despite its name suggesting a colorless personality—is one of the handsome children of the family. Its flowers, larger than most mustards, range in color from pale yellow, through orange, to rich bronze shades. By no means all of the mustards are yellow. The flowers of many of them are white, some, like the cardamine that grows in abundance along sub-alpine water runs, being a very showy, brilliant white.
Saxifrage Family
Snowball Saxifrage, Saxifraga rhomboidea, GREENE
Individual flowers are ¼ inch or less across, each with 5 white petals, and are grouped in a compact, round-topped head about 1 inch in diameter which forms the top of a naked stem (scape). This scape rises to a height of 8 inches, or sometimes much less, from the center of a flat circle of oblong, leathery leaves. As the blossoms age, the flower cluster becomes loose and sprangly. Grows on moist slopes in sub-alpine and montane zones. Blooms May-July.
Saxifrage is another large family of quite varied sorts. Gooseberries and mock orange come within its membership. The numerous species of alum root, Heuchera, are also included, as are many little alpine and sub-alpine plants that grow out of rock crevices in our high mountains. Purple saxifrage, Saxifraga jamesii, with quite large red-purple flowers, and dotted saxifrage, Saxifraga austromontana, with tiny white flowers covered with pale dots, are among the best. All of these seem able to thrive on only a teaspoonful of soil in a rock crack, if only there is local moisture. The structural features that bring all these plants within one family are not obvious. The leaves of many of them are similar to the leaves of a gooseberry bush, though in some this resemblance is remote, and in others entirely absent.
Orpine Family
Queen’s Crown, Sedum rhodanthum, GRAY
