Alaska Wildflowers

Photographed along the Harding Icefields trail in Kenai Fjords National Park, I believe this is the Nootka Lupine, but if anyone knows better I'd appreciate a correction. I was not able to bring my wildflower books along because we were carrying everything in our backpacks and I forgot to check the number of leaflets when I photographed this.

This shrub grows from northern California up to Alaska but is still uncommon. Its botanical name is Menziesia ferruginea and its common name comes from the fact that it looks like a huckleberry plant but produces brown seedpods instead of berries. This example was photographed along the Harding Icefields trail in the Exit Glacier area of Kenai Fjords National Park.

The Western Red Columbine, Aquilegia formosa, is a common wildflower, but no less beautiful for that. These were photographed along the Seward Highway near Summit Lakes.

We saw a lot of these in Alaska. They are the Woolly Geranium, Geranium erianthum. The photo was taken along the Seward Highway near Summit Lakes. If you look closely there is an Aphid or small insect at the base of the column of the first flower.

The photo was taken in Denali National Park, but we saw these wildflowers in many different places. They were an important and nutritional food source for the Inuits and are even listed in the US Army's field manual as an edible survival food. We did not try them, but I would have liked to have done so. They are commonly known as the Eskimo Potato and their botanical name is Hedysarum alpinum.

We found this beautiful wildflower along the Harding Icefields trail in the Exit Glacier area of Kenai Fjords National Park. There were many of them at the higher elevations to which we hiked and, in fact, this trail was almost the only place on our Alaska trip that we saw an abundance of wildflowers.

Alaska was hot and dry when we were there and wildflowers were scarce. We did see a good number of them, however, in Kenai Fjords and Denali National Parks, especially at higher elevations. This was photographed at the Polychrome Overlook where the bus stopped briefly before going on to Toklat.

In other respects resembling its much larger cousin, Dwarf Fireweed or Riverbeauty Willowherb, is only a foot or so tall and is considered a distinct species. It grows primarily in northern regions around the globe and is an important food source for native people. All parts of the plant are edible and it is the national flower of Greenland. This example was photographed near Whittier, Alaska. On another note, my commenting and visits will be sporadic for a few days. We will be traveling to eastern Washington to visit our handicapped son and then going on to Mount Rainier to meet and hike with my brother, Tim, whom some of you know from Ipernity. Friends will be house-sitting for us and we'll be back sometime Monday evening.

Photographed along the Horseshoe Lake trail near the Nenana River in Denali National Park, these were some of the most beautiful paintbrush I've seen. Most of our Paintbrush are red or orange, very unlike these beauties.