Yellow Owl's-clover / Orthocarpus luteus

Macro shot of a small Owl-clover flower, taken on 13 August 2011, when a few of us were lucky enough to spend the day botanizing Rod Handfield's private land, SW of Calgary. This is a favourite place for us to go and explore and list every species of flora and fauna that we see, as there is always a great variety of species to see.

This plant is native to Alberta, and uncommon, and likes dry prairie grassland, flowering June-August. The stems are 10-40 cm tall, with a spike terminal cluster of tiny golden yellow flowers (10-15 mm long). Stem surface is covered in sticky hairs.

Many thanks for the following information received from Mark Egger, on 16 June 2013:

"Anne, your source of information about Orthocarpus species is out of date/incorrect on some points. There are only nine species (and several additional subspecies) of true Orthocarpus, and they are all native to western North America. This one, Orthocarpus luteus, has by far the largest range, extending far to the north and east of the others. The other species were moved to either Castilleja or Triphysaria back in the early 1990's, and this split has since been verified by extensive DNA studies. I'm very surprised that wildflowers.org still has such outdated information... Here is a link to my Collection, with sets for each or the true Orthocarpus species and subspecies:
www.flickr.com/photos/mark_egger_castilleja/collections/7..."

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