cat’s ear or mariposa lily

Not only did yesterday’s hike provide beargrass out the wazoo, there were other abundant wildflowers, in kind if not showy volume. Gaining 2,300 feet to end up at 4,000 offers a broad range of habitat.

Wild rose (baldhip? — too small to be Nootka),vanilla leaf, avalanche lily, tiger lily, bunchberry, a leafless pyrola of some sort (should have taken a photo while I had the opportunity), rhododendron, blue huckleberry, lupine, paint brush, bleeding heart (they bloomed after we’d passed them on the way up!), penstemon, (hints of gentian to come), phlox (of the blue-purple kind), windflower (or three-leafed anemone — Danielle, these are the five-petaled white flowers companionable to the bunchberry), foamflower, foxglove, buttercup, and others I can’t identify.

One of my favorites is mountain cat’s ear or subalpine mariposa lily (Calochortus subalpinus), found on the rocky outcropping of Mount Mitchell.

Also known as Mountain Cat’s ear. The hairy petals of the flowers are reminiscent of the soft, inside of a cat’s ear. Three white petals form the flower. The throat of the flower is tinged with yellow. The flowers 1-1.5″ across appear in clusters of up to five at the end of an unbranched stalk. Each plant has a single flattened grass-like leaf branching form the base of the stem. The lily grows from a bulb which was considered to be edible by the Shoshonean. Subalpine Mariposa Lily can be found in dry meadows and open forest at middle to subalpine elevations. It ranges from southern Washington to central Oregon.

From the Washington Trails Association website.

Related posts:

1. Pinnacle Ridge, Mount Hood Wilderness
2. Catherine Creek critters
3. An Egg’s Angle of Repose
4. An Egg’s Angle of Repose
5. Paradise park