The First Wildflowers of Spring

A search of dated photos from hikes in late winter showed some patterns of the first arrivals of wildflowers. Each year is different. In the lower hills, the snows can melt as early as the third week of February or as late as the third week in March. The south-facing lower-elevation, angled (right angles to the height of the sun). open (untreed) slopes are the first to clear and once the ice is out of the ground, the soil starts to dry and then the sage buttercups start to emerge.

On February 24 in 2016 we spotted and photographed the first spring sagebrush buttercups on the south-facing slopes of Batchelor Ridge:

In most years the first spottings of wildflowers is the middle of March in the lower grasslands, near Deep Lake, and in the Dewdrop Range. Sagebrush buttercups are usually first to appear. By mid-summer they have died back, but reemerge the next year as soon as the snows clear. Buttercups are poisonous and were even used to poison arrowheads by First Nations people. There are other types of buttercups which appear later in the year at higher elevations and in wet zones.

In March we can sometimes spot arabis, infected by the rust fungus which gives it a yellow color.

Following buttercups and arabis the first yellow bells emerge en masse. Yellow bells (fritillaria pudica) are perennials that grow from small bulbs. They appear in the grasslands at lower to mid-elevations after the snows melt. The bulbs were harvested and eaten by First Nations. It is a cultivated plant sometimes seen in rock gardens.