Common Butterwort

Pinguicula vulgaris

Bladderwort Family

This small plant is one of only a few carnivorous ones in the region. It grows from fibrous roots in bogs, seeps and wetlands and along stream banks and lakeshores from valleys to the subalpine zone. Its pale-green to yellowish leaves are basal, short-stalked, somewhat overlapping and curled in at the margins, forming a rosette on the ground. The leaves have glandular hairs on their upper surface which exude a sticky substance that attracts and then ensnares small insects. The flower is pale to dark purple and solitary atop a leafless stem.

Stickseed

Hackelia floribunda

Borage Family

This hairy biennial or short-lived perennial has stiffly erect stems and grows to 1 m tall. The small, yellow-centred blue flowers occur in loose clusters on curving stalks near the top of the plant. The fruits are nutlets that are keeled in the middle and attached to a pyramid-shaped base. Each nutlet has rows of barbed prickles. While the flowers on this plant are lovely to look at, the prickles on the nutlets cling easily to fur, feathers and clothing, thus lending the plant its common name.

Tall Lungwort (Mertensia)

Mertensia paniculata

Borage Family

This perennial grows from a woody rootstock to heights of some 80 cm along stream banks and in moist woods, shaded poplar groves and mixed forests. The plant is usually hairy and may have multiple branches. Its basal leaves are large, prominently veined, heart-shaped, white-hairy on both sides and long-stalked. The stem leaves are stalkless or short-stalked, rounded at the base and tapering to the pointed tip. The blue flowers occur in drooping clusters, hanging like small bells. The corolla is tubular and five-lobed. The flowers’ buds often have a pinkish tinge, turning blue as they open.

Blue Clematis

Clematis occidentalis

Buttercup Family

A plant of shaded riverine woods and thickets, Clematis is a climbing, slightly hairy, reddish-stemmed vine that attaches itself to other plants by slender tendrils. The flowers have four to five sepals and are purplish to blue in colour, with dark veins. The flowers resemble crepe paper. The fruits are mop-like clusters of seeds, each of which has a long feathery style. The Blackfoot called the plant “ghost’s lariat,” a reference to the fact that the vine would entangle their feet when they walked through it. Clematis often goes by the locally common name of Virgin’s Bower.

Blue Columbine

Aquilegia brevistyla

Buttercup Family

This plant occurs in deciduous, coniferous and mixed woods, meadows and riverine environments, and grows to heights of 80 cm. The leaves are mostly basal and compound, with each having three sets of three leaflets. The flowers appear on tall stems that reach above the basal leaves. The flowering stems have a small number of smaller leaves, each with only three leaflets. The attractive flowers can be nodding or ascending, with five yellowish or white sepals and five blue to purplish reflexed petals, each with a hooked, nectar-producing spur at its end. Columbines have a very distinctive floral structure and are usually unmistakable. Bumblebees and butterflies are drawn to them to collect the nectar.

Low Larkspur

Delphinium bicolor

Buttercup Family

This is a plant of open woods, grasslands and slopes that grows up to 40 cm tall from a fleshy rootstock. It usually has a single flowering stem. Larkspurs are easily recognized for their showy, highly modified flowers. The irregular petals are whitish to bluish, with sepals that are blue to violet. The upper sepal forms a large, hollow, nectar-producing spur. The flowers bloom up the stem in a loose, elongated cluster. The common name is said to have originated because the spur on the flower resembles the spur on the foot of a lark. The plant is poisonous to cattle and humans.

Prairie Crocus

Anemone patens
(also Pulsatilla patens)

Buttercup Family

This plant is widespread and common in grasslands, dry meadows and mountain slopes. It is usually one of the first wildflowers to bloom in the spring, and can occur in huge numbers. The flowers are usually solitary, various blues to purples in colour, and cup-shaped. White varieties are sometimes seen. It is interesting to note that the flower blooms before the basal leaves appear. The plant has many basal leaves, palmately divided into three main leaflets, and again divided into narrow linear segments. The leaves on the flower stem appear in a whorl of three.

Blue Lettuce

Lactuca tatarica ssp. pulchella

Composite Family

This plant grows up to 1 m tall in fields and meadows and along roadsides, lakeshores and stream banks, often in moist, heavy soil. The leaves are hairless, lobed below and simple above. The flowers are composite heads and have pale to dark-blue ray florets that are toothed at the tip. There are no disc florets.

Bull Thistle

Cirsium vulgare

Composite Family

This Eurasian weed was introduced to North America and is now common along roadsides and in pastures, waste places and clearings. The flowers are large composite heads with purple disc flowers and no ray flowers. The flower heads are bulbous and covered in sharp spikes. The flower structure is extraordinarily intricate when examined closely. The leaves, both basal and stem, are lance shaped, deeply lobed, spiny and clasping the stem. The species grows to heights of over 2 m and produces a multitude of flowers, which are a favourite of bees and butterflies.

Canada Thistle

Cirsium arvense

Composite Family

Despite the common name, this noxious weed was introduced to North America from Eurasia. The plant grows to over 1 m tall from a thin, white creeping rhizome. The flowers occur in heads at the tops of the multiple branches. The flowers are usually pinkish to mauve but may be white. The leaves are alternate and oblong to lance-shaped with wavy margins. Because of the creeping rhizome and tremendous seed distribution, the plant will quickly take over areas where it grows. If the rhizome is cut or broken by farming machinery, the spread of the plant is exacerbated.

Parry’s Townsendia

Townsendia parryi

Composite Family

This tap-rooted, reddish-stemmed perennial blooms in the early spring on dry hills and gravelly slopes, along stream banks and in grassy areas from prairie to alpine elevations. Most of its leaves are basal and form a rosette at ground level. The stems, leaves and bracts are covered in white hairs. The relatively large flowers appear low to the ground on short stems, and they consist of broad ray flowers of violet to purple surrounding bright-yellow disc flowers. The Blackfoot boiled the roots of some Townsendias to make a concoction for treating ailments in horses.

Showy Aster

Aster conspicuus

Composite Family

This plant is widespread and common at low to mid-elevations in moist to dry open forests, openings, clearings and meadows. The flowers are few to many composite heads on glandular stalks, with 15–35 violet ray flowers and yellow disc flowers. The stem leaves are egg-shaped to elliptical, with sharp-toothed edges and clasping bases. Some Indigenous peoples soaked the roots of the plant in water and used the decoction to treat boils. The leaves were also used as a poultice for that purpose.

Smooth Blue Aster

Aster laevis

Composite Family

This plant inhabits open wooded areas, meadows, coulees and ditches, often on gravelly soil. The plants are erect, up to 120 cm tall, and can form large colonies. The flowers are composed of pale- to dark-purple or bluish ray florets surrounding bright-yellow disc florets. Smooth Blue Aster is believed to be a selenium absorber and therefore dangerous to livestock that consume it. Selenium is a chemical element that is accumulative in the digestive system, and too much can lead to symptoms like the blind staggers.

Small-Flowered Beardtongue (Slender Beardtongue)

Penstemon procerus

Figwort Family

This plant grows up to 40 cm tall at low to alpine elevations, usually in dry to moist open forests, grassy clearings, meadows and disturbed areas. Most of the blunt to lance-shaped leaves appear in opposite pairs up the stem. The small blue to purple flowers are funnel-shaped and appear in one to several tight clusters arranged in whorls around the stem and at its tip.

Smooth Blue Beardtongue

Penstemon nitidus

Figwort Family

This erect, often branched perennial usually has several stems that grow to 30 cm tall, often occurring in clumps on dry, grassy slopes and in eroded areas. The pale-green, oval to lance-shaped leaves are opposite, thick and fleshy and covered with a greyish bloom. The blue flowers are numerous, and occur in dense clusters from the leaf axils at the top of the plant. The flowers are tube-shaped, up to 2 cm long, and have purple pencilling inside the lower floral lip.

Blue Flax

Linum lewisii

Flax Family

This perennial grows up to 60 cm tall from a woody base and taproot, in grasslands, along roadsides and on dry, exposed hillsides and gravelly river flats. The leaves are alternate, simple and stalkless. The pale purplish-blue flowers have five petals, five sepals, five styles and five stamens, with darkish guidelines, and are yellowish at the base. They appear on very slender stems that are constantly moving, even with the smallest of breezes. Some Indigenous peoples used the stem fibres to make cordage. The common name, Flax, is derived from the Latin filum, which means “thread.”

Hairy Four O’Clock (Umbrellawort)

Mirabilis hirsuta

Four O’Clock Family

This perennial grows from a heavy, woody taproot in pastures, reaching 60 cm in height. The plant is covered in short hairs. The leaves are opposite, variable in shape, and up to 10 cm long. The flowers are bluish to pinkish, and often occur in groups of three on the upper half of the plant. The common name Four O’Clock comes from the fact that many members of the genus have flowers that open in the late afternoon. The species name, hirsuta, is derived from Latin and means “hairy.” Plants in the genus are often referred to as Umbrellaworts.

Northern Gentian

Gentianella amarella (also Gentiana amarella)

Gentian Family

This plant is found in moist places in meadows, woods and ditches and along stream banks up to the subalpine zone. The flowers are first sighted by their star-like formation winking at the top of the corolla tube, amidst adjacent grasses. The plant is most often small, standing only 15–20 cm. The flowers appear in clusters in the axils of the upper stem leaves, the leaves being opposite and appearing almost to be small hands holding up the flowers for inspection. There is a fringe inside the throat of the flower.

Sticky Purple Geranium

Geranium viscosissimum

Geranium Family

This is a plant of moist grasslands, open woods and thickets that can grow up to 60 cm tall. The flowers have large, showy, rose-purple to bluish petals that are strongly veined with purple. The long-stalked leaves are deeply lobed and split into five to seven sharp-toothed divisions, appearing in opposite pairs along the stem. There are sticky, glandular hairs covering the stems, leaves and some flower parts. The fruit is an elongated, glandular hairy capsule with a long beak shaped like a stork’s or crane’s bill. The specific epithet, viscosissimum, derives from Latin and is the superlative form of “sticky.”

Harebell

Campanula rotundifolia

Harebell Family

This plant is widespread in a variety of habitats, including grasslands, gullies, moist forests, clearings and rocky open ground. The bell-shaped flowers are purplish-blue, with hairless sepals, nodding on a thin stem in loose clusters. The leaves are lance-shaped and thin on the stem. The heart-shaped basal leaves are coarse-toothed and usually wither before the flowers appear. Campanula is Latin meaning “little bell.”

Western Bog Laurel (Swamp Laurel)

Kalmia microphylla

Heath Family

This low-growing evergreen shrub occurs in cool bogs and along stream banks and lakeshores from low to subalpine elevations. Its leathery leaves are dark green above and greyish white beneath, often with the margins rolled under. The flowers are pink to rose coloured, with the petals fused together to form a saucer or bowl on a reddish stalk. There are 10 purple-tipped stamens protruding from the petals. The leaves and flowers of this plant contain poisonous alkaloids that can be fatal to humans and livestock if ingested.

Blue-Eyed Grass

Sisyrinchium angustifolium

Iris Family

These beautiful flowers can be found scattered among the grasses of moist meadows from low to subalpine elevations. The distinctively flattened stems grow to 30 cm and are twice as tall as the grass-like basal leaves. The blue flower is star-shaped, with three virtually identical petals and sepals, each tipped with a minute point. There is a bright-yellow eye in the centre of the flower. The blossoms are very short-lived, wilting usually within a day, to be replaced by fresh ones on the succeeding day.

Giant Hyssop

Agastache foeniculum

Mint Family

A plant common in thickets and along streams, this mint is erect and grows to heights of up to 1 m. The stem is square in cross-section, typical of the mint family. The leaves are opposite, oval and coarse-toothed, with pointed tips. The blue to purple flowers are densely packed and appear in interrupted clusters along the top of the stem. Indigenous peoples used the leaves of the plant for making a tea and as a flavouring in foods. The flowers were often collected for medicine bundles.

Marsh Hedge Nettle

Stachys palustris

Mint Family

A plant of wetland margins, stream banks, marshes and wet ditches, Marsh Hedge Nettle grows erect to heights of up to 40 cm. The stems are square, the leaves opposite and simple, lance-shaped and hairy. The flowers are pale purple and appear at the top of the spike, often in interrupted fashion.

The genus name, Stachys, is Greek for “spike,” referring to the inflorescence type. The specific epithet, palustris, is Latin meaning “of wet places.”

Marsh Skullcap

Scutellaria galericulata

Mint Family

This plant grows up to 80 cm tall at low to mid-elevations in wetlands and ditches and along lakeshores and stream banks. Its leaves are opposite, oval to lance-shaped, and irregularly scalloped along the blades. The stem is square, typical of the mint family. The trumpet-shaped flowers have a hooded upper lip and a broad, hairless lower lip, and are blue to purplish-pink marked with white. The flowers occur as solitary on slender stalks or as pairs in the leaf axils.

Wild Mint (Field Mint)

Mentha arvensis

Mint Family

This plant inhabits wetland marshes, moist woods, stream banks and lake shores, and sometimes lives in shallow water. The purplish to pinkish to bluish flowers are crowded in dense clusters in the upper leaf axils. The leaves are opposite, prominently veined, and highly scented of mint if crushed. The stems are square in cross section and hairy. The strong, distinctive taste of mint is from their volatile oils. The leaves have long been used fresh, dried or frozen as a flavouring and for teas.

Dame’s Rocket (Dame’s Violet)

Hesperis matronalis

Mustard Family

This mustard was introduced into North America from Eurasia as an ornamental plant, and it has spread extensively throughout Canada and much of the United States. Typically it inhabits disturbed sites, waste ground, thickets, woods and road and railsides. The plant is erect and grows to over 1 m tall. Its lance-shaped leaves are alternate, predominantly clasping on the stem, hairy on both sides, and become progressively smaller up the stem. The flowers occur in showy clusters at the top of the stem. Each flower is four-petalled, purple to blue to white in colour, and fragrant.

Venus Slipper (Fairy Slipper)

Calypso bulbosa

Orchid Family

This orchid is found in moist, shaded coniferous forests. The flowers are solitary and nodding on leafless stems. The flower has pinkish to purplish sepals and mauve side petals. The lip is whitish or purplish with red to purple spots or stripes and is hairy yellow inside. The flower is on the top of a single stalk and has a deeply wrinkled appearance. This small but extraordinarily beautiful flower blooms in the early spring, often occurring in colonies.

Ascending Purple Milk Vetch

Astragalus adsurgens

Pea Family

This tufted, erect or spreading perennial grows up to 50 cm tall from a heavy taproot in grasslands and meadows. The leaves are pinnately compound, greyish-green in colour and hairy. Each leaf may contain 9–25 leaflets. The plant usually has a dozen or more stems, and forms clumps up to 60 cm wide. The flowers occur in dense rounded or cylindrical clusters, and may be white, purplish or lavender. The standard usually has dark markings, and the keel is dark-tinged.

The plant is also known as Standing Milk Vetch and Lavender Milk Vetch.

Purple Milk Vetch

Astragalus agrestis

Pea Family

This plant occurs in grasslands and meadows from prairie to subalpine elevations. It is a low-growing, hairy plant that may be erect or decumbent. The leaves are compound, with 9–23 spear-shaped leaflets that are often notched on their blunt ends. The flowers are purple to pink, and occur in densely packed, rounded clusters which are enclosed by a calyx that has greyish to blackish hairs.

Purple Prairie Clover

Petalostemon purpureum

Pea Family

This perennial is a many-stemmed, decumbent or erect, smooth, leafy plant that grows up to 60 cm tall from a thick rootstock. It occurs on hillsides, in open prairie, at roadsides and on eroded slopes in badlands. The leaves are medium green, alternate and pinnately compound. The small flowers are numerous, dark-purple to rose in colour, and each has five petals of almost the same size and shape, but without the keel that is typical of pea flowers. The flowers are most often seen at the base of the spike, with a bare area above, similar to coneflowers.

Showy Locoweed

Oxytropis splendens

Pea Family

This attractive member of the pea family has silvery leaves growing from a branched, woody stock. The flower stalk is elongated and holds dense clusters of numerous flowers above the silvery leaves. The flowers are purple to bluish and shaped like other members of the pea family. Locoweeds are poisonous to cattle, horses and sheep because the plants contain an alkaloid that can cause the blind staggers, a condition that makes the animal behave in a crazy fashion, ergo loco in Spanish.

Silky Lupine

Lupinus sericeus

Pea Family

This leafy, erect, tufted perennial with stout stems appears in sandy to gravelly grasslands, open woods, and roadsides, often growing in dense clumps or bunches. The plant grows up to 80 cm tall. Its flowers are showy in long, dense terminal clusters, and display a variety of colours in blues and purples, occasionally white and yellow. The flowers have a typical pea shape, with a strongly truncated keel and a pointed tip. The leaves of Lupines are very distinctive, being palmately compound and alternate on the stem, with five to nine very narrow leaflets that have silky hairs on both sides.

Shooting Star

Dodecatheon pulchellum

Primrose Family

This plant is scattered and locally common at low to alpine elevations in warm, dry climates, mountain meadows, grasslands and stream banks. The leaves are lance- to spatula-shaped and appear in a basal rosette. The singular to several purple to lavender flowers nod atop a leafless stalk, with corolla lobes turned backwards. The stamens are united into a yellow to orange tube from which the style and anthers protrude. A harbinger of spring, these lovely flowers often bloom in huge numbers, turning the grasslands to a purple hue.

Bog Violet

Viola nephrophylla

Violet Family

This beautiful small violet grows in moist meadows, on stream banks and in woods. The leaves and flower stalks arise from the base of the plant. The leaves are oval to kidney-shaped, smooth, and scalloped on the margins. The purple to blue flowers each have a spur 2–3 mm long. Violets are high in vitamins C and A and have been used as food since early Greek and Roman times. They are still cultivated for that purpose in some parts of Europe. The young leaves and flower buds may be used in salads or boiled.