Shunda to Columbia Icefields, Alberta Rockies in July

[cohan]

That is interesting about bronze-bells (Stenathium occidentale)... Very common in the foothills and lower montane here, and in bloom now where we were on Tuesday.  Moss & Packer show it as occurring up as far north as the headwaters of the Athabasca, so perhaps your immediate area is not in preferred habitat ("moist banks and woods")?
Yikes, more reorganization, and more to remember!

hard to say why some of these things do or dont occur..its worth noting that my experience in my immediate area is confined mainly to a couple hundred acres of my family farm--which does have a pretty large number of the species that should be around here--and then what i see in roadsides and ditches; this is farming country, and all land is privately owned, so i am not tramping around in anyone else's woods!
my recent find of Aralia nudicaulis (in the edge of someone else's woods!) just a couple of miles up the road is a good reminder to me that there could be things around that i happen not to have seen....

i THINK i planted the Stenanthium, since its the only individual i know of..but natures does occasionally seed random plants--there is, for example, exactly one juniper on the farm, and (at least used to be, havent got to that part of the farm) one or two pines... mine flowered some time ago...

[cohan]

onward once more, to an area some of you will be becoming familiar with (see my other posts from the rockies)--the Kootenay Plains, specifically the trails from the staging area for the Siffleur Falls ..(this may be confusing since i never go to the falls; there are more species in the open areas that are interesting to me than the forest that leads to the falls, plus if i spent several hours round trip to the falls, we wouldnt have the time to go on into the higher mountains..falls/schmalls--its just water

the highway at this point has some fairly wide views between the mountains, with some areas of forest, winding rivers, and other drier grassy zones; much of the area is an ecological reserve, and there are a number of camping places, with much of the land belonging to native peoples...
Abraham Lake, as lori mentioned, is a man-made lake formed by damming the North Saskatchewan River, and flooding a large area of these plains--important to wildlife and plants and sacred to native peoples; must have been some controversy about that one!

[cohan]

site 4
as mentioned on previous trips, this area is quite dry year round, making it popular with wildlife in winter due to low snow levels...
the moisture levels vary throughout the region, even very locally--depending on topography etc-which areas collect moisture, catch snow, have more winds etc.. so vegetation ranges from forest to scattered trees to grassy areas to areas too dry for solid grass etc..
a few views along my  walk showing this range of vegetation...

[Magnar]

Thank you Cohan, for this interesting thread.. I really enjoyed it 

[cohan]

site 4--ok, on to the plants... which i've decided to group thematically rather than chronologically...
first some composites..as established earlier, i dont have a good reference for these, so some i can guess at, others not even that...

pics 1-6 Erigeron caespitosus?
this is a really sweet little daisy, mostly white, sometimes with just a hint of pink or lavender; i can't swear this is always the same species, but suspect many of the apparent differences are environmenta: it was growing from semi-shaded and sheltered spots near trees and among vegetation such as junipers and Arctostaphylos, to extremely exposed dry spots with no shelter at all..6 is enjoying a view, just like the earlier campanulas
pics 7-10 yellow daisy
i'm not sure if this is the same as the yellow sp i saw at site 2 (certainly pic 8 is not, very different foliage), and i realise i'm not even sure from my pics if this was one species--i need to take notes as well as photos, apparently! in any case, as you see from the last shot, there were a lot of these in places-lining parts of the trail...

[cohan]

site 4
more composites, and a couple others..
pic 1 Erigeron?
this might be the same species as in the last posting, but if so, its by far the most coloured individual i came across
pics 2,3 Antennaria sp
these were blooming much later than plants at other sites, even at similar elevations-presumably due to the very dry conditions typical here; at this visit, the ground was wet in most spots, the plants enjoying some long awaited rain..
pic 4 Artemesia sp
perched right on the edge of a high and steep drop to the river
pic 5 Campanula rotundifolia
didn't i say they had a knack for finding spots with views?
pic 6 Elaeagnus commutata
i think! common also at dryish lower elevations, a nice silvery shrub related to Russian Olive
pics 7-9 Linum perenne
 a less blue flower than at the last site, these are nearly white with coloured veins
pic 10 Physaria didymocarpa
these were in glorious flower when i last visited, now exhibiting their characteristic  inflated seedpods..

[cohan]

site 4
last set for this location: the peas!
pics 1-4 Oxytropis splendens
i think that's right--i have to go back to lori's comment earlier--its the leaflets which are whorled around the leaf stem? this species does not have the showiest inflorescence of the native peas--sometimes its more wool than flowers--but the plant itself is one of the best, if not THE  best, with low growth and its densely whitely haired surfaces; here in the dry areas it can form large patches; i didnt get a good shot of it this time,(its hinted at in 3) but it makes large (i mean many square meteres) swathes of uninterrupted silver among areas of arctostaphylos, juniper, and other forbs.. to paraphrase rodger  in another thread, mother nature's gardening schemes often make ours look paltry!
pics 5,6 Hedysarum alpinum
most of this area is too dry for this species, i think, but a few plants could be found in moister spots, same for
pic 7 H. boreale
pics 8,9 Oxytropis
again the dilemma of going on blooming times alone as distinguishing feature--O sericea or monticola?
pic 10 pea
this is a bad shot, included only to show yet another pea in this area, though not common at this site; i think someone gave me a name for this on the last trip, i have to look back; this is one of my favourite native pea flowers, but the plant is boring green...lol

[cohan]

Thank you Cohan, for this interesting thread.. I really enjoyed it 

thanks, magnar, glad to hear it

[Paul T]

You guys certainly do have a lot of interesting Fabaceae up there in Canada, don't you?  Fascinating!!

[Ragged Robin]

Cohan, catching up and enjoying your next stage of landscape and flora, especially the Oxytropis splendens - what a great plant 

[Lori S.]

site 4
last set for this location: the peas!
pics 1-4 Oxytropis splendens
 this species does not have the showiest inflorescence of the native peas--

If you continue your roadside botanizing (further into the bloom, for example, and into areas with more vivid colour forms), I can almost guarantee you will soon see the error of that statement, LOL!   They didn't call it "splendens" for nothin'! 

Nice shots!

[cohan]

site 4
last set for this location: the peas!
pics 1-4 Oxytropis splendens
 this species does not have the showiest inflorescence of the native peas--

If you continue your roadside botanizing (further into the bloom, for example, and into areas with more vivid colour forms), I can almost guarantee you will soon see the error of that statement, LOL!   They didn't call it "splendens" for nothin'! 
Nice shots!

lori--perhaps further into the season, as you say, and perhaps in less arid places it would be more showy? at the sites where i was, although there were some inflorescences quite fully open, it just seemed less impressive in amount of actual flower surface showing, if that makes any sense... than some of the other species growing nearby..
i still really like the oxy overall because of the white foliage....

tks robin and paul--see above re: the oxytropis, it is a really nice plant and yes, paul, that family is strongly represented, with several species together in some places; as we go on, you will see rosaceae is also a major player..

[Lori S.]

To explain, the flowers of Oxytropis splendens tend to be vivid fuchsia here, which makes quite an eye-catching contrast with the gray fur... in the area where you photographed, it seems the flowers are more of a pinky mauve (or at least it reads that way on my monitor...?)

[cohan]

To explain, the flowers of Oxytropis splendens tend to be vivid fuchsia here, which makes quite an eye-catching contrast with the gray fur... in the area where you photographed, it seems the flowers are more of a pinky mauve (or at least it reads that way on my monitor...?)

reddish colours do tend to lose a bit in digital photos, so there could be some diminishment, but i think its fairly accurate--you see for example the Hedysarum boreale shows up as very vivid in the photos, so maybe it is a Kootenay Plains variant of O splendens thats just a little less splendid...lol

[Armin]

Cohan,
I'm impressed by the vastness of the Alberta Rockies.

Would like to go Fly-fishing for capital trouts on one of the unwedged rivers
Must be fantastic...