Flowers of Leavenworth

Quite a few flower pictures, so I figured I'd break them up a bit. This batch should all be in and around Leavenworth, mostly on that island on the riverwalk.

This is harebell, Campanula rotundifolia. I actually had one of these in my back yard before I left on vacation. Haven't checked to see if it's still there.

This is definitely a milkvetch, probably Alpine Milk-Vetch, Astragalus alpinus. These are in the pea family, and at first I thought they were lupines. But the leaves are wrong. There is a lupine further down (too bad I didn't get a shot of the leaves on that).

Okay, this one is just cool. Also in the pea family. It's Dalmatian Toadflax, Linaria dalmatica. Apparently this was originally native to the Mediterranean.

This one took me a while to find, but I think I've seen it before. It's called tarweed, and doesn't seem to be in any of my books.

Big-head Clover, Trifolium macrocephalum. Apparently clovers are edible, but are more easily digested when cooked or soaked in saltwater. Supposed to be high in protein [Field Guide to Wildflowers of the RM]. I tried a white cloverhead in Oregon. Odd taste. Might be a good addition to a spinach salad, though.

Marsh hedge nettle, or some other hedge nettle. Marsh hedge nettle is Stachys palustris. This was another tricky one to find. It's in "Weeds of the Northern US and Canada." Anyway, it's in the mint family. Quite pretty, though the weed book notes that it's difficult to get rid of it in cultivated fields.

Last one from Leavenworth (at least that I plan to post) is a lupine. Most lupines look alike to me, so I won't pretend to know which variety of lupine it is. This is also in the pea family, and produces fuzzy peapods after blooming. Don't eat them. They contain harmful alkaloids. I've seen lupines almost everywhere I've been in the west. I didn't see any at Cherry Springs, or in Oregon (yet). Why no pictures before now? Mostly, because I had so many other new ones that they got pushed back.

I do find it interesting how many representatives of the pea family there were. :^)