Sage Season

One of the most easily recognized plants in Colorado is Sagebrush.  The one we always think of is called Big Sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata).  It has a gray or bluish green cast to it's leaves and a strong odor.  When you burn it, it smells like incense.  It covers miles of open prairie and mountain hillsides in the state, but it doesn't live on Green Mountain.  There may be a few hiding out somewhere, but I haven't found them yet.  

We do have several varieties of sage that keep some color in the hills as all the grass turns to brown.  They're some of the first plants to "green" up in the Spring (some aren't very green) and they keep their color until late Fall. 

They're all flowering now, but it's hard to tell because the flowers are so inconspicuous.  They are about ⅛" across and usually are yellow or white--nothing showy!  

Prairie Sage

Fringed Sage 

 The first two are a grayish green, and look pretty similar until you get close.  Prairie Sage (Artemesia ludoviciana) will grow to over 2' tall.  It has long thin leaves that are a bit hairy if you rub them.  It's cousin is Fringed Sage (Artemesia frigida).  Although the color is about the same, if you check out the leaves, they are very finely divided and look much different than the wider, flat leaves of the Prairie Sage.

False Tarragon

The third sage has a bright green color and can grow up to 4' tall.  Along with many other late Summer bloomers, it doesn't look like much.  The small blossoms are covering g the plants this weekend, and after they bloom they get a really unusual seed pod.  Because they are so inconspicuous, the seeds make it easy to tell False Tarragon.  Of course because it's called FALSE Tarragon, you've probably already figured out that it doesn't have any scent, so you can't replenish your herb jar!

False Tarragon Seed pod

Going to seed

I've been gone for a week--probably a good time of year for that since things don't change much for the wildflower world in the middle of summer.  We've had some decent monsoon rains judging by the rain gauge, and it's kept things from getting too dried out.

But time marches on and we're in the middle of summer.  That means that all the Spring flowers have already gone to seed and lots of the summer flowers are making their seeds, too.  

I've talked about the Aster family and it's composite flowers, but once the flowering ends many of them turn into puffballs like the familiar dandelion seeds.  One thing I didn't quite figured out till i started pulling flowers apart was how they turned into puffballs.  The little umbrellas that carry the seeds on the wind are called pap pus.  When the flower is first forming, they are present, but in the middle of the blossom, all tucked away.  In the photo below I've pulled a few out on the left side. You can see how the individual flowers all extend down so that the seeds are all formed side by side.  As the flower withers, the petals fall away and the pap pus puffs out.  When the wind comes along, they're ready for another invasion of your lawn.  Although you may not like it for dandelions, it spreads seeds very effectively for lots of other native asters, too.

The pea family is another one that makes some interesting seeds.  The Groundplum Milkvetch that we saw earlier in the year gets its name from its seeds, which, as you can see below, look like some kind of weird fruit laying on the ground.  

Groundplum Milkvetch seeds (Astragalus crassicarpus)

On the other hand, Lupine are much more like the typical peas, and grow fuzzy pea pods as the flowers fade.  It's easy to find these since the Lupine are still blooming, so look for a few purple flowers.

Lupine seed pods (Lupinus argeteus)