Skunk Cabbage (Yellow Arum)

Lysichiton americanum

Arum Family

This distinctive early-blooming perennial grows in large patches from a fleshy rhizome, and inhabits swamps, bogs, marshes and mucky ground at low to mid-­elevations. The inflorescence appears before the leaves do, and consists of hundreds of tiny greenish-yellow flowers sunk into a thick, fleshy stalk known as a spadix, which is surrounded by a large, bright-yellow sheath leaf called a spathe. The broadly elliptical leaves are huge, growing up to 120 cm long on stout stalks. The whole plant has an earthy odour, giving rise to the common name.

Oregon Grape

Mahonia nervosa

Barberry Family

This evergreen shrub is widespread in the foothills, commonly at low to mid-elevations on dry plateaus and in dry to moist forests and openings. The plant very closely resembles holly, with shiny, sharp-pointed leaves that turn to lovely orange and rusty colours in the fall. Its round flowers are pale to bright yellow, and bloom in the early spring, giving way to a small purple berry that resembles a grape.

Common Bladderwort

Utricularia vulgaris

Bladderwort Family

This aquatic carnivorous plant is found in shallow water in sloughs, lakes, ditches and ponds. It floats beneath the surface of the water, with a tangle of coarse stems and leaves. The long, branching, submerged stems have finely divided leaves that spread out like little nets. Attached to the leaves hang numerous small bladders that are actually traps for aquatic insects. When an insect swims into a bladder, small hairs are tripped, which shuts the bladder, trapping the insect inside. The insects are then digested, providing a source of nitrogen for the plant.

Blazing Star (Giant Blazing Star)

Mentzelia laevicaulis

Blazing Star Family

This spectacular plant grows up to 1 m tall, and occurs in arid basins and dry grasslands from valleys to montane elevations. Stiff, barbed grey hairs cover the angular stems and foliage of the plant. The leaves are up to 30 cm long, lance-shaped and deeply lobed, with wavy margins. The flowers occur at the top of stout, satiny white stems. The lemon-yellow flowers are large and star-like, with five lance-shaped petals up to 8 cm long and numerous long yellow stamens that burst forth in a fountain-like display.

Puccoon (Lemonweed)

Lithospermum ruderale

Borage Family

A coarse perennial up to 50 cm tall, this plant is firmly anchored to dry slopes and grasslands by a large woody taproot. Its numerous sharp-pointed leaves are lance-shaped and clasp the stem. The small yellow flowers are partly hidden in the axils of the leaves near the top of the plant, and have a strong, pleasant scent. The stems and leaves are covered in long white hairs. The fruit is an oval, cream-coloured nutlet that is somewhat pitted and resembles pointed teeth.

Yellow Buckwheat (Umbrella Plant)

Eriogonum flavum

Buckwheat Family

This fuzzy-haired tufted perennial favours dry, often sandy or rocky outcrops, eroded slopes and badlands. The leaves are dark green on top, but appear white and felt-like on the underside due to the dense hairs. The yellow flowers occur in compound umbels – umbrella shaped clusters – atop the stem. The common name Umbrella Plant is testimony to the shape of the inflorescence.

Sagebrush Buttercup

Ranunculus glaberrimus

Buttercup Family

This beautiful little buttercup is one of the earliest-blooming wildflowers in the region, with its shiny, bright-yellow petals peeping out from the dead winter grasses of early spring on arid hillsides. The leaves are mainly basal and elliptical to lance-shaped. The flowers appear in patches or as single blooms. Sagebrush Buttercups are poisonous, containing an acrid alkaloid, and some Indigenous peoples warned their children not to touch or pick them.

Yellow Columbine

Aquilegia flavescens

Buttercup Family

Lemon-yellow in colour, these beautiful flowers nod at the ends of slender stems that lift the flowers above the leaves. Each flower is composed of five wing-shaped sepals and five tube-shaped petals that flare at the open end and taper to a distinctive spur at the opposite end. The leaves are mainly basal, with long stems, and are deeply lobed. The plant occurs on rockslides and talus slopes and in meadows in the alpine and subalpine zones.

Brittle Prickly-Pear Cactus

Opuntia fragilis

Cactus Family

This easily recognized plant is prostrate and can form mats on dry, exposed slopes in eroded areas and badlands, often growing in sandy or rocky soil. The stems are flattened and broad, and are covered with clusters of hard, sharp spines that have tufts of sharp bristles at the base. The flowers are large and showy, with numerous yellow petals that are waxy and up to 5 cm long. The fruits are pear-shaped spiny berries which are edible and are often browsed by antelope.

Narrow-Leaved Desert Parsley (Nine-Leaf Biscuit-Root)

Lomatium triternatum

Carrot Family

This perennial herb occurs in dry to moist open sites from foothills to montane elevations and grows up to 80 cm tall. Its mostly basal leaves are hairy and divided into segments, often in three sets of three leaflets each. The leaf stalks are irregular in length and clasp the stem. The yellow flowers are very small, occurring in compound, flat-topped clusters (umbels) atop the stems. Often there are a few slender, leafy bracts just below the junction of the individual stalks, but no bracts occur at the base of the flower arrangement.

Arrow-Leaved Balsamroot

Balsomorhiza sagittata

Composite Family

This is a widespread and frequently abundant plant of hot, arid climates, often found on rocky south-facing slopes. Its flowers are solitary composite heads with bright-yellow ray flowers and yellow disc flowers, and are densely hairy, especially at the base. The large, silvery leaves are arrowhead-shaped and covered with dense, felt-like hairs. Balsamroot often provides a showy early-spring splash of colour on warm, dry hillsides. All parts of the plant are edible, and the species was an important food for Indigenous peoples.

Brown-Eyed Susan (Gaillardia)

Gaillardia aristata

Composite Family

This is a plant of open grasslands, dry hillsides, roadsides and open woods. The flowers are large and showy, with yellow ray florets that are purplish to reddish at the base. The central disc is purplish and woolly hairy. The leaves are numerous, alternate and lance-shaped, usually looking greyish and rough owing to the many short hairs. A number of Indigenous peoples used the plant to relieve a variety of ailments.

Canada Goldenrod

Solidago canadensis

Composite Family

This upright perennial grows from a creeping rhizome and often forms large colonies in moist soil in meadows and along stream banks and lakeshores. Its solitary flowering stem is up to 1 m tall or more, has many branches near the top and is covered with short, dense hairs. The simple, alternate leaves – all on the stem and relatively uniform in size – are lance-shaped to linear, sharply saw-toothed, and hairy. The tiny yellow flowers occur in dense, pyramid-shaped clusters at the tops of the stem branches. Each flower has yellow ray and disc florets.

Curly-Cup Gumweed

Grindelia squarrosa

Composite Family

This plant is a sticky perennial or biennial that grows up to 1 m tall from a deep taproot, and occurs on roadsides, saline flats, slough margins and dry grasslands. Its leaves are dark green, narrowly oblong, entire or slightly toothed, and glandular-sticky. The lower leaves have long stalks, while the upper ones are stalkless and somewhat clasping, with pointed or rounded tips. The flowers appear as numerous heads, with bright-yellow ray florets.

Goat’s-Beard (Yellow Salsify)

Tragopogon dubius

Composite Family

A plant of grasslands, roadsides, ditches and dry waste areas, Goat’s-Beard was introduced from Europe. Its yellow flower is a large, solitary, erect head surrounded by long, narrow, protruding green bracts. The leaves are alternate, fleshy and narrow, but broad and clasping at the base. The fruit, a mass of white, narrow-ribbed, beaked achenes, resembles the seed pod of a common dandelion, but is significantly larger, approaching the size of a softball. The flowers open on sunny mornings, but then close up around noon and stay closed for the rest of the day.

Heart-Leaved Arnica

Arnica cordifolia

Composite Family

Arnica is a common plant of wooded areas in the mountains, foothills and boreal forest. The leaves occur in two to four opposite pairs along the stem, each with long stalks and heart-shaped, serrated blades. The uppermost pair is stalkless and more lance-shaped than the lower leaves. The flowers have 10–15 bright-yellow ray florets and bright-yellow central disc florets.

Pineapple Weed (Disc Mayweed)

Matricaria discoidea

Composite Family

This branching annual grows up to 40 cm tall along roadsides, in ditches and on disturbed ground. The stem leaves are alternate and fern-like, with finely dissected, narrow segments. Basal leaves have usually fallen off by the time flowering occurs. The flowers are several to many composite heads, with greenish to yellow disc florets on a cone- or dome-shaped base. There are no ray florets. When crushed, the leaves and flowers of the plant produce a distinctive pineapple aroma, hence the common name.

Sow Thistle (Perennial Sow Thistle)

Sonchus arvensis

Composite Family

This is a plant of cultivated fields, roadsides, ditches and pastures. The flowers have large yellow ray florets similar to dandelion flowers. Sow Thistle is an imported species from Europe and is not a true thistle. Sow Thistles will exude a milky latex when the stem is crushed, while true thistles do not. The common name is derived from the fact that pigs like to eat this plant.

Spear-Head Senecio (Arrow-Leaved Ragwort)

Senecio triangularis

Composite Family

This leafy, lush perennial herb often grows to 150 cm tall and occurs in large clumps in moist to wet open or partly shaded sites from foothills to alpine elevations. The leaves are alternate, spearhead or arrowhead-shaped, squared off at the base and tapered to a point. The leaves are numerous and well developed along the whole stem. The flowers occur in flat-topped clusters at the top of the plant and have five to eight bright-yellow ray florets surrounding a disc of bright-yellow to orange florets.

Tansy

Tanacetum vulgare

Composite Family

This plant was introduced from Europe and is common in pastures and disturbed areas and along roadsides, embankments and fences. Its flattened yellow flowers occur in numerous bunches atop multiple stalks and resemble buttons. The dark-green, finely dissected leaves are fern-like and strong smelling. During the Middle Ages a posy of Tansy was thought, fancifully, to ward off the Black Death.

Woolly Groundsel (Woolly Ragwort)

Senecio canus

Composite Family

This perennial grows from a woody stem base and taproot, with erect stems that are white woolly and grow to 40 cm tall. The plant grows in dry areas, from open rocky or sandy places in sagebrush flats to the alpine zone. The whole plant has a silvery appearance owing to the woolly hairs. The basal leaves and lower stem leaves are elliptical, stalked and white woolly-hairy. The middle and upper leaves are alternate and become sessile. The rounded inflorescence consists of composite heads with woolly bases and yellow ray and disc flowers.

Yellow Evening Primrose

Oenothera villosa (also O. strigosa)

Evening Primrose Family

An erect, robust, leafy biennial, this plant forms a rosette of leaves the first year, and puts up a tall, leafy stem the second. The flowers have large, bright-yellow, cross-shaped stigma, with numerous yellow stamens. The flowers usually open in the evening and fade in the morning, a behaviour adopted because moths are the principal pollinators of the plant. The plant gets its common name from its habit of blooming at dusk.

Bracted Lousewort (Wood Betony)

Pedicularis bracteosa

Figwort Family

This plant can attain heights of up to 1 m, and is found at subalpine and alpine elevations in moist forests, meadows and clearings. Its fern-like leaves are divided into long, narrow, toothed segments and are attached to the upper portions of the stem of the plant. The flowers, varying from yellow to red to purple, arise from the axils of leafy bracts and occur in an elongated cluster at the top of the stem. They have a two-lipped corolla, giving the impression of a bird’s beak.

Butter and Eggs (Toadflax)

Linaria vulgaris

Figwort Family

This is a common plant of roadsides, ditches, fields and disturbed areas that grows to 1 m tall. Its dark-green leaves are alternate and narrow. The bright-yellow, orange throated flowers are similar in shape to Snapdragons and occur in dense terminal clusters at the tops of erect stems. The corolla is spurred at the base and two-lipped, the upper lip having two lobes, the lower one, three. The common name arises from the yellow and orange tones on the flowers, reminiscent of butter and eggs.

Common Mullein

Verbascum thapsis

Figwort Family

This Eurasian import is quite common along roadsides, in gravelly places and on dry slopes. The plant is a biennial, taking two years to produce flowers. In the first year, it puts out a rosette of large leaves that are very soft to the touch, much like velvet or flannel. A strong, sentinel-like stalk appears in the second year. The small yellow flowers appear randomly on the flowering spike. At no time do all the flowers bloom together. After flowering the dead stalk turns dark brown and may persist for many months.

Yellow Monkeyflower

Mimulus guttatus

Figwort Family

This plant occurs, often in large patches, along streams, at seeps and in moist meadows. The species is quite variable, but is always spectacular when found. The bright-yellow flowers resemble Snapdragons, and occur in clusters. They usually have red or purple dots on the lip, giving the appearance of a grinning face. The genus name, Mimulus, is derived from the Latin mimus, which means “mimic” or “actor.”

Yellow Beardtongue (Yellow Penstemon)

Penstemon confertus

Figwort Family

This is a plant of moist to dry meadows, woodlands, stream banks, hillsides and mountains. The small, pale-yellow flowers are numerous, and appear in whorled, interrupted clusters along the upper part of the stem. Each flower is tube-shaped and has two lips. The lower lip is three-lobed and bearded at the throat, while the upper one is two-lobed. The common name, Beardtongue, describes the hairy, tongue-like staminode (sterile stamen) in the throat of the flower. The genus name, Penstemon, is a reference to the five stamens in the flower

Golden Corydalis

Corydalis aurea

Fumitory Family

This plant of open woods, roadsides, disturbed places and stream banks is an erect or spreading, branched, leafy biennial or annual. It germinates in the fall and overwinters as a seedling. In the spring it grows rapidly, flowers, and then dies. The yellow flowers are irregularly shaped, rather like the flowers of the pea family, with keels at the tips. A long, nectar-producing spur extends backward from the upper petal.

Black Twinberry (Bracted Honeysuckle)

Lonicera involucrata

Honeysuckle Family

This plant is a shrub that grows up to 2 m tall in moist woods and along stream banks. Its yellow flowers occur in pairs arising from the axils of the leaves, and are overlain by a purple to reddish leafy bract. As the fruit ripens the bract remains, enlarges and darkens in colour. The ripe fruits occur in pairs and are black. They are bitter to the taste, but serve as food for a variety of birds and small mammals.

Glacier Lily (Yellow Avalanche Lily)

Erythronium grandiflorum

Lily Family

This gorgeous lily is one of the first blooms in the spring, often appearing at the edges of receding snowbanks on mountain slopes, thus the common names. The bright-yellow flowers that appear at the top of the leafless stem are usually solitary, though a plant might have up to three flowers. The flowers are nodding, with six tepals that are tapered to the tip and reflexed, with white, yellow or brown anthers. The broadly oblong, glossy leaves, usually two, are attached near the base of the stem and are unmarked.

Yellowbell

Fritillaria pudica

Lily Family

This diminutive flower is a harbinger of spring, often blooming just after snowmelt in dry grasslands and dry, open ponderosa pine forests. It can easily be overlooked because of its small size, usually standing only about 15 cm tall. The yellow, drooping, bell-shaped flowers are very distinctive. The flowers turn orange to brick red as they age. The leaves, usually two or three, are linear to lance-shaped, and appear more or less opposite about halfway up the stem. The Yellowbell sometimes appears with two flowers on a stem, but single blooms are more common.

Douglas Maple (Rocky Mountain Maple)

Acer glabrum

Maple Family

This deciduous shrub or small tree is found in moist, sheltered sites from foothills to subalpine zones. The plant has graceful, wide-spreading branches. The young twigs are smooth and cherry-red, turning grey with age. The leaves are opposite and typical of maples: three-lobed, with an unequal and sharply toothed margin. The yellowish-green flowers are short-lived and fragrant, with five petals and five sepals, hanging in loose clusters. The fruits are V-shaped pairs of winged seeds joined at the point of attachment to the shrub. The fruit is known as a “samara.”

Golden Draba (Yellow Draba, Golden Whitlow Grass)

Draba aurea

Mustard Family

This mustard grows up to 50 cm tall, and occurs on rocky slopes and in open woods and meadows from the montane to the alpine zones. Its hairy basal leaves are lance-shaped and appear in a rosette. The stalkless, hairy, lance-shaped stem leaves are alternate, somewhat clasping, and distributed up the stem. The bright-yellow flowers are four-petalled and appear in a cluster at the top of the stem. Mustards typically have four petals in a cruciform shape.

Prairie Rocket

Erysimum asperum

Mustard Family

This erect, robust plant grows to 50 cm tall or more in dry, sandy grasslands, particularly in the southeastern parts of the region. The bright-yellow flowers appear in rounded clusters at the terminal ends of stout branching stems. The stem leaves are simple, alternate and lance-shaped. At one time, children were treated for worms with a concoction made from the crushed seeds of this plant mixed in water.

Soopolallie (Canadian Buffaloberry)

Shepherdia canadensis

Oleaster Family

This deciduous shrub can reach 3 m tall, and is often the dominant understorey cover in lodgepole pine forests. All parts of the plant are covered with shiny, rust-coloured scales, giving the whole plant an orange, rusty appearance. The leaves are leathery and thick, green and glossy on the upper surface, while the lower surface is covered with white hairs and sprinkled with rusty-coloured dots. The male and female flowers appear on separate plants. The small, inconspicuous yellow flowers often appear on the branches of the plant before the arrival of the leaves.

Wolf Willow (Silverberry)

Elaeagnus commutata

Oleaster Family

Another tall deciduous shrub, growing to 4 m, often in dense stands. Its twigs are thickly covered with rusty-brown scales, while its oval, silvery leaves are alternate and similarly covered with small scales. The flowers are funnel-shaped and have four yellow lobes, occurring at the leaf axils. The flowers are very fragrant with a distinctive aroma. The fruits are silvery, round to egg-shaped berries that usually persist throughout the winter.

Yellow Lady’s Slipper

Cypripedium parviflorum

Orchid Family

This is an orchid of bogs, damp woods and stream banks. Its leaves are alternate, broadly elliptical and clasping, with two to four per stem. The yellow flowers usually occur singly on a stem, and resemble a small shoe. The sepals and lateral petals are similar, greenish-­yellow to brownish, and have twisted, wavy margins. The lower petal forms a prominent pouch-shaped yellow lip with purple dotting around the puckered opening. This flower has suffered large range reductions as a result of picking and attempted transplantation, which almost always fails.

Field Locoweed

Oxytropis campestris

Pea Family

This early-blooming plant is widespread and common among rocky outcrops, along roadsides and in dry open woods. Its leaves are mainly basal, with elliptical leaflets and dense hairs. The pale-­yellow, pea-like flowers bloom in clusters at the top of a leafless, hairy stem. The plant is poisonous to cattle, sheep and horses, owing to its high content of alkaloids that cause blind staggers. This loss of muscle control in animals that have ingested the plant is the origin of the common name for the flower, loco being Spanish for “crazy” or “foolish.”

Sulphur Lupine

Lupinus sulphureus

Pea Family

This species is a slender, erect, mostly unbranched plant that is stiff-hairy and grows up to 80 cm tall in grasslands and dry open ponderosa forests at low to mid-­elevations. Its sharp-pointed leaves are alternate, mostly on the stem, palmately compound and have 8–13 leaflets. The few basal leaves have longer stalks and are hairy on both surfaces. The yellow (sometimes white), pea-like flowers are hairy and whorled or scattered in a raceme along the upper part of the stem.

Yellow Hedysarum

Hedysarum sulphurescens

Pea Family

This is a plant of stream banks, grasslands, open forests and clearings. Its yellowish to nearly white flowers are pea-like and drooping, usually appearing along one side of the stem in elongated clusters (racemes). The fruits of the plant are long, flat, pendulous pods with conspicuous winged edges and constrictions between each of the seeds. This plant is also called Yellow Sweet Vetch. It is an extremely important food for grizzly bears, which eat the roots in the spring and fall.

Yellow Mountain Avens (Drummond’s Mountain Avens)

Dryas drummondii

Rose Family

This is a plant of gravelly streams and riverbanks, slopes and roadsides in foothills and mountains. Its yellow flower is solitary and nodding, with black glandular hairs blooming on the top of a hairy, leafless stalk. Leaves are alternate, leathery and wrinkly, dark green above and whitish-hairy beneath. The fruit consists of many achenes, each with a silky, feathery, golden-yellow plume that becomes twisted around the others into a tight spiral that later opens into a fluffy mass, dispersing the seeds on the wind.

Large-Leaved Avens

Geum macrophyllum

Rose Family

This is a tall, erect, hairy perennial that grows in moist woods, along rivers and streams and in thickets from low to subalpine elevations. Its bright-yellow flowers are saucer-shaped, with five petals, usually appearing at the tip of a tall, slender stem. The basal leaves occur in a cluster. The terminal leaf is rounded, shallowly lobed and much larger than the lateral leaves below. The fruits are achenes that have hooks on them which will cling to the clothing of passersby and the fur of animals as a seed dispersal mechanism.

Shrubby Cinquefoil

Potentilla fruticosa

Rose Family

This low deciduous shrub is found on rocky slopes and in dry meadows and gravelly river courses at low to subalpine elevations. Its leaves are alternate, divided into three to seven (usually five) greyish-green leaflets that are lightly hairy and often have curled edges. The flowers are golden yellow and saucer-shaped, with five rounded petals, usually blooming as a solitary at the ends of branches. The flowers are often smaller and paler at lower elevations, larger and brighter in higher terrain. Many Potentilla species have five leaflets, and their flower parts are in fives.

Silverweed

Potentilla anserina

Rose Family

This plant is a low, prostrate perennial that grows from thick rootstock and reddish-coloured runners in moist meadows and on riverbanks, lakeshores and slough margins. Its leaves are basal, compound, toothed and pinnate, with 7–25 leaflets per leaf. Each silky-haired leaflet is green to silvery on top and lighter underneath. The flowers are bright yellow and solitary on leafless stems, with rounded petals in fives. The sepals are light green and hairy, and appear between the petals.

Sticky Cinquefoil

Potentilla glandulosa

Rose Family

This plant inhabits open forests and meadows at low to mid-elevations, growing to about 40 cm tall from a branched rootstock. Its leaves and stems are covered with glandular hairs that exude a sticky aromatic fluid. The leaves are mainly basal and pinnately divided into five to nine sharp-toothed oval leaflets. The flowers are typical of the Potentillas, and are pale yellow to creamy white, occurring in small, open clusters at the tops of the stems.

Yellow Mountain Saxifrage

Saxifraga aizoides

Saxifrage Family

This is a sturdy, ground-hugging perennial that forms loose mats or cushions on moist sand, gravel, stream banks and stones in the alpine zone. Its upright stems can grow to 10 cm tall, and are crowded with fat, succulent, linear leaves that have an abrupt tip. The leaves are covered in very small, pale hairs. The flowers appear at the tops of the stems, pale yellow and often spotted with orange. The flowers have five petals, which may be ragged at the tips. There are 10 stamens with conspicuously large anthers.

Western St. John’s Wort

Hypericum scouleri (also H. formosum)

St. John’s Wort Family

This perennial appears in moist places from foothills to the alpine zone and grows to 25 cm tall. Its leaves are opposite, egg-shaped to elliptical, 1–3 cm long, somewhat clasping at the base, and usually have purplish-black dots along their edges. The bright-yellow flowers have five petals and occur in open clusters at the top of the plant. The stamens are numerous, often resembling a starburst.

Lance-Leaved Stonecrop (Spearleaf Stonecrop)

Sedum lanceolatum

Stonecrop Family

This fleshy perennial with reddish stems grows up to 15 cm tall on dry, rocky, open slopes and in meadows and rock crevices from low elevations to above timberline. Its numerous fleshy, alternate leaves are round in cross-section, overlapping and mostly basal. The bright-yellow flowers are star-shaped with sharp-pointed petals, and occur in dense, flat-topped clusters atop short stems.

Round-Leaved Violet (Evergreen Violet)

Viola orbiculata

Violet Family

This diminutive flower is an early bloomer, appearing right after the melting snows in moist coniferous forests. Its oval to nearly circular leaves lie flat on the ground and often remain green through the winter. The species name, orbiculata, is a reference to the shape of the leaves. The flowers are lemon yellow and have purplish pencilling on the lower three petals. The markings direct insects to the source of the nectar. Candied flowers of this plant are often used for decorating cakes and pastries.

Yellow Wood Violet

Viola glabella

Violet Family

This beautiful yellow violet occurs in moist woods, often in extensive patches. There are smooth, serrate, heart-shaped leaves on the upper part of the plant stem. The flowers have very short spurs, and the interior of the side petals often exhibits a white beard. The flower is also commonly referred to as Smooth Violet and Stream Violet.