Elephant's Head

This is one of my favorite flowers, I love elephants and no joke this flower resembles an elephant's head!

Common name- Elephant's Head

Latin name- Pedicularis groenlandica

Family-Snapdragon

General info- 16" with dense spike of many 3/4" pink flowers, each unmistakable shaped like an elephant's head with up-curved trunk. Leaves are fern-like, pinnately lobed, toothed.

Blooms- July through August

Habitat- Wet, high elevations, meadows, bogs, shallow streams.

Source- National Audubon Society, Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States.

Rabbit Stick

Sign at the entrance, Rabbit Stick is a week long event that teaches primitive or traditional camping skills. Like bow and arrow making, making cattail dolls, carving and navigation and mapping and tons more.
The main square or gathering place.
Nice guy who let me take his picture.

Handmade canoe (they teach this too).

Some of the campers, the little girl was really cute.

These are a memorial to friends who have passed on.

Maynor looking at the river.

Some one's tee pee, they were set up all over the place.

The "rabbit".

Sea Kayaks, they teach this the week before Rabbit Stick because it takes about 10 days to make. They start with a wooden frame and cover that with canvas and after hand stitching the canvas closed they cover it in polyurethane (I think that's what it is). They are watertight and the people we talked to really did use them on the sea. You can visit their web site to learn more, www.seawolfkayak.com.

Waterfalls on the way to Table Rock

18mm 1/4 F/20 ISO-250

18mm 1/4 F/20 ISO-250

Found these two streams on our way up to Table Rock. I didn't have a tripod with me so I don't think I did to bad.

Death Camas

Flora and Fauna Friday-Death Camas

Common name- Death Camas

Latin name- Zigadenus (Toxicoscordion) venenosus

Family- Lily

General info- 19" pointed 4" cluster of 1/2" cup shaped, white to cream flowers with 6 petals (3 long, 3 short); with round, green spot near base of each petal. Leaves 10", grass like.

Blooms- May through July

Habitat- Grasslands, open low elevations forests.

CAUTION: THIS PLANT IS DEADLY POISONOUS!

Source- National Audubon Society, Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States

Silvery Lupine

For this Flora and Fauna Friday I'm introducing you to the Silvery Lupine!

Common name- Silvery Lupine or just Lupine.

Latin name-Lupinus argenteus

Family- Pea

General info- 18" high with blue or bi colored (pink or white) 3/4" pea-flowers. Whorled in conical clusters. Silver-hairy leaves (usual only below), stems, seedpods, sepals. Stems often purple. Leaves palmately compound.

Blooms-April through July

Habitat- partial shade at mid-elevations, alpine gravels (where dwarfed). Ponderosa pine forest and meadows.

Source- National Audubon Society- Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States.

Yellow-Bellied Marmot

For this Flora and Fauna Friday I decided to post about fauna. This fat little fellow is a Yellow-Bellied Marmot. Maynor spotted him when we were hiking Table Rock.

(he's hard to see in these photos but he's running off the large boulder towards the right side)

Common name-Yellow-Bellied Marmot, Rock Chuck

Latin name- Marmota flaviventris

Family- Squirrel

General info- Length, 24"; Tail 7". Coat reddish brown: belly is yellow; sides of neck buffy (Not kidding, that is what the book says). Head dark brown; pale brown patches on muzzle. Feet buffy or brown, strongly clawed. Tail is bushy, reddish brown. Often sits on boulder above burrow.

Voice- High, soft chirps and whistles.

Breeding-4-5 young in May.

Sign- Den near large boulder.

Habitat- Below 11,000':rocky areas in valleys, foothills and mountains.

Activity- Mainly by day: hibernates August to March.

Range- ID, w and c MT; mountains of Wy, w and c CO.

Photo courtesy of tomuphotos.com

Source-National Audubon Society, Field Guide to the Rocky Mountain States