With our Flower Floozie vacationing in Washington state, she bestowed on me the honor and great responsibility to lead the Friday WW down to Little Hyatt.

I was grateful for a manageable crew of 5 flower lovers.

We headed up to the Greensprings under threatening skies, but only had intermittent showers after lunch.

It did, however, rain overnight so the flowers were refreshed; although some were closed waiting for the sun to open again. I knew this because I had gone up Thursday to scout the trail and compile a flower ID list of about 40 species. I saw many more open flowers on Thursday because it was partly sunny.

Although we didn't get very damp it did get chilly in the forest with temps in the 40s and maybe even the upper 30s.

This WW is a convenient 20 mile drive from Ashland and it features two different environments for flowers, first the shady forest and then the open meadows. So you get different flowers growing in different environments.

Following Liz's tradition, we began identifying flowers as soon as we got out of the cars. (At the end of the report I will list the flowers in the order that we spotted them, first the forest flowers then the meadow flowers ).

Thanks to our enthusiastic flower walkers for their questions and participation in IDing the flowers. And special thanks to Kay for her happy willingness to photograph flowers and post them with IDs.

The roundtrip walk is about 4 miles on the PCT with some good heart exercise walking back up the meadow and into the forest.

Note: The stars of Friday's Wildflower Walk were: Bleeding Hearts (lots), Trilium (with flowers turned purple at end of season), Calypso Orchids (small but mighty), Washington Lilies (seedlings just coming up, can get over 6' when mature in July/August), Prairie Smoke/ Old Man's Whiskers (the main attraction), Great Blue Camas (spectacular blooms) and Brown's Wild Peony (rare in this location).

Respectfully, your fill-in flower floozie,
Rich Stickle

Forest
Groundsel/Ragwort
Yellow Currant/Ribes
Larkspur/Delphinium
Star Solomon Seal
Sitka Valerian
Bleeding Heart
Oregon Anemone
Wild Strawberry
Plumed Solomon Seal
Western Trillium
Oregon Grape
Pioneer Violet
Mountain Vetch/Purple Pea
Washington Lily seedlings
Serviceberry shrubs
Forget Me Nots
Coral Reef Mushroom
Yellowleaf Iris
Calypso Orchid
Miner's Lettuce
Woodland Star
Coral Root Orchid

Meadow
Rosy Plectritis
Arrowleaf BalsamRoot
Madea/Tarweed
Blue Dicks/Ookow
Nine Leaf Biscuitroot
Indian Paintbrush
Silver Leaf Lupine
Prairie Smoke/Old Man's Whiskers
Meadow Death Camas/Zigadenus
Great Blue Camas
Wooly Head Clover
Yellow Salsify
Brown's Wild Peony
Oregon Geranium
Bluehead Gilia