Mountain Postcard

Day 267: I have the good fortune to be able to live, work and play in what I consider to be one of the most beautiful and exciting places on Earth: at the foot of Mount Rainier. I never know from one day to the next what I may discover. Why, just in the last few months, I've documented several rare plant species, and I have to tell you, those are the kinds of "red-letter" events which delight me most. But even when I'm viewing the mundane...marmots, paintbrush, alpine meadows filled with heather...it is the Mountain's presence which awes me and fills my spirit. This, above all else, is home.

Castilleja Paradise

Day 258: Of the six species of Castilleja (Indian Paintbrush) you may encounter at Mount Rainier National Park (others occur elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest), C. miniata (Slender Paintbrush aka Scarlet Paintbrush, left) and C. parviflora (Magenta Paintbrush, right) are the most common in subalpine meadows. Like Christmas poinsettias, their most dramatic feature is not their flowers. It is their colourful bracts, modified leaves which in the case of the Paintbrushes often conceal much of the actual blossom. Note the inconspicuous yellow "spike" among the bracts in each of these photos. That is a Paintbrush flower (or more properly, its corolla, i.e., a set of fused petals surrounding the reproductive structures of the plant).

So where might you find a painted meadow? These specimens were photographed yesterday at Paradise where, in a normal year, patches of snow might still be on the ground. Wildflower season has begun early this year, and our subalpine meadows are already filled with every colour of the rainbow. Get out there and take a hike!