Individual flowers, ¼ inch across, are formed of 4 or 5 bright rose petals; numerous flowers being congested in a round head an inch or more in diameter terminating a leafy shoot, several of which rise from a woody root crown. Plant is 6 to 10 inches high, with narrow, gray-green, fleshy leaves crowded along the succulent stems. Grows in wet places alpine and sub-alpine zones. Blooms June-August.
Along the cold, mountain stream trickling out from Lake Isabelle, or near any similar alpine lake or tarn, grows the Sedum, named queen’s crown for the rosy-pink crowns of blossoms. These plants like to have their feet in the water and often help to make the hillocky mounds on the lake’s edge. Nearby and tolerating drier ground, is the king’s crown, Sedum integrifolium, with its flatter head of deep maroon flowers resembling the old-fashioned Bohemian garnet jewelry. The stems and leaves of these sedums color brilliantly with the first frosts and add richness to the Persian carpets of timberline in late August and early September.
Rose Family
Bush Cinquefoil, Potentilla fruticosa, L.
Flowers are an inch in diameter, of 5 broad, golden petals surrounding 20 or more stamens. Groups of several flowers are borne at the ends of the numerous short branches. Plant is a dense shrub about 3 to 4 feet high with many dark, woody, freely-branching stems. Leaves are pinnate, with usually 5 or 7 narrow linear leaflets. Grows in moist parts of the montane zone, also in the upper foothills and the lower sub-alpine zones. Blooms continuously May to September.
This thornless yellow rose is one of the most widespread and most ornamental shrubs of mountain areas. Individual clumps are rarely fully covered with bloom at any one time, tending rather to bring out a few fresh flowers each day of the season so that all summer long there are buds, fresh blossoms, groups of faded petals, and small, dry, fuzzy seeds (achenes) distributed over the plant. Other species of Potentilla grow also in our mountains. They are much smaller and most of them herb-like, but the resemblance to a yellow single rose, and the absence of thorns are common to them all. We have many wild roses in this same family, of the genus Rosa, that have plenty of thorns and closely resemble the red single roses of the garden.
Pea Family
Prairie Pea, Lathyrus stipulaceus, B. AND ST. J.
Flowers, more than ½ inch across, are shaped like a cultivated sweet pea, with very showy red banner and paler lateral petals and keel. Plants, about 6 inches high, grow in irregular mats. The leaves are pinnate, formed by about 4 pairs of narrow linear leaflets. These and the stems are gray-green and, in most plains specimens, covered with rather silky down. Grows in sandy soil on plains. Blooms May-June.
This, and the quite different looking plants shown on the next three pages, give but a small sample of the pea family, which is one of the largest and most important of the plant groups. More than 150 species in this one family are native to Colorado, and additional ones have been introduced for ornament or food. They take every form and size from the little flat mats of deer clover, shown on the opposite page, to the rank growing clumps of sweet clover that spread themselves along our roads. Beans and alfalfa as well as sweet peas, lupines and even locust trees, all belong to this big family.