Columbine

Columbine
Aquilegia sp.
Ranunculaceae (Buttercup Family)

Quick ID

Ternately divided leaves

Columbines are upright, rather delicate looking plants with basal leaves generally around 6" tall, and flowering stalks that can reach 2 1/2'.  The fruits are a distinctive follicle of five slender pods with extended pointy tips, clustered together and splitting open to release rather large black seeds.  Leaves are usually two times divided into threes (making nine leaflets per leaf), and mostly clustered at the base of the plant.  The flower stalk sports a few smaller leaves; for the most part they're fairly insignificant.

Pod-like fruits

The flowers, however, are unmistakable. Five colorful sepals encircle five (usually) lighter colored petals whose bases sweep back into knobby spurs.  Colorado columbine (A. coerulea) has light purpley-blue sepals, with straight spurs twice as long as the petals.  Another species  common in Montana, yellow columbine (A. flavescens) has lemony yellow sepals that sometimes run towards pink,  and the spurs are much squatter and more curled in.  Both have a waggly tuft of stamens and styles poking down from the center of the blossom.

Meadowrue - same leaves, different flower

Aquilegia leaves can be easily mistaken for another Ranunculaceae member, the meadowrue (Thalictrum sp.) that grows in similar spaces.  Once they're blooming it's easy to tell them apart; Thalictrum has inconspicuous flowers that can't compare to columbine's showy blossoms.
There are many species of Aquilegia in the US (five in Montana), with lots of varieties within themselves, and the species have a tendency to hybridize with each other as well.  That being said, color is not always a great way to tell species apart.  The morphology of the spurs and where the plant is found growing can provide better clues. 

Range
Look for columbines in moist meadows and forests.  In Montana, A. coerulea has a smaller, more southerly range (extending from the lower quarter of the state and down to New Mexico) and prefers shadier sites.  A. flavescens can take more sun, and is pretty widespread in high elevations throughout western and central MT, on down to Utah and Colorado.

The pink sepals hint that this may be a hybrid of A. flavescens and A. formosa  (red columbine), a less common species that grows at lower elevations.  This photo was taken at Pine Creek in the Paradise Valley.

What's in a Name?
This plant is totally named for its looks.  Aquilegia probably comes from the Latin aquila, "eagle," for the spurs that look like talons.  Other sources claim the genus is derived from aqua (water) and lego (to collect), for the spurs' resemblance to ancient water urns.  The species name coerulea is quite common in the plant world, and means blue, while flavescens (and its equally common root flavens) means yellow.  The name "columbine" itself comes from the Latin word for dove, columba.  People say the flower looks like five little doves sipping from a water bowl together, tails poking towards the sky.

Tidbits
Columbines are pollinated by hummingbirds and hawk moths, who can reach deep into the flower to get at the nectar.  I've also seen plenty of bumblebees in my garden burrowing down into the tubes.  Growing up in Minnesota, red columbines (probably A. canadensis) were common, but we always knew them as "honeysuckles."  Indeed, it was my favorite thing as a wee one in the woods, to bite off the sweet little nectar-filled spur tips of these flowers.  Of course now I know that, like all these Ranunculaceae characters, Aquilegia can be pretty poisonous.  Eating a large enough quantity of the seeds, especially, can be dangerous and even fatal.  These toxic little seeds have been used in the past as a parasiticide to treat lice infestations as well.  Beautiful and deadly...

Wild Gardening

A. coerulea fitting into a shady woodland garden nicely, along with alumroot (Heuchera cylindrica), hosta, bleeding heart and bedstraw (Galium odoratum)

According to Lone Pine's totally awesome new Alpine Plants of the Northwest field guide, yellow columbines are Montana gardener's number one favorite native perennial herb.  And for good reason.  Most of us are forever on the lookout for an easy-to-grow plant with gorgeous blooms that does well in shady spaces.  These perennials are tolerant and adaptive, very easy to start from seed, and bloom in the thick of summer, late June to August.  I've noticed mine spreading over the years, filling in their shady nook, but not to the point of being obnoxious.  I've also noticed that, as the flowers start to fade, their almost always seems to be a collection of aphids gathered on the developing fruits.  This has never caused any problems in my garden whatsoever, but it does tend to make the protruding flower stalks look a little yucky.  At this point I usually snip those stalks off at the base, and enjoy the pretty foliage for the rest of the season.

Pasqueflower

Pasqueflower
Pulsatilla patens
Ranunculaceae (Buttercup Family)

Quick ID
Look for tufts of silky leaves growing from a perennial root crown, about 6" tall.  The leaves are divided into wispy leaflets, generally in threes.  The silver dollar sized flowers lack petals; what a "normal" person would call the petals are technically sepals, forming a cup-shaped calyx around a cluster of waggly yellow stamens.  (Calyx is what the sepals are called collectively.  If they were petals, it would be called a corolla.  Botany, boom.)
Flowers, which come up before the leaves, are shades of purple, from deep mauve to pale lavender.  They have silvery hairs on the outside, with smooth, lighter colored inner surfaces.  Although you might find a rare white P. patens, it's more likely what you're seeing is the western pasqueflower, P. occidentalis, or one of the Anemone species.

The flowers poke upright when they're new, then hang down like a bell as they mature, and finally give way to little smokebombs of tufted hairs as they set fruit.

Range

P. patens is found in the boreal zone (45°-65° latitude) all around the northern hemisphere.  It's fairly common in the the western region of North America, from Alaska down to New Mexico.  The pasqueflower prefers drier places than many of its Ranunculaceae cousins.  Look for it in grasslands or open rocky (often south-facing) slopes, in steppe to subalpine zones. (Side note.  Steppe communities are basically grassland prairies and plains, where the only trees found are the ones growing by water, and the subalpine region is found just below the treeline.  The elevation of these zones can vary dramatically based on where you are in the world.)

What's in a Name?
"Pasque" is from the original Latin word for Easter, Pascha.  You can usually find these flowers blooming around the Easter holiday...oftentimes before the snow is even off the ground.  The species name patens means "spreading," and is one you see a lot in the plant world.  Pulsatilla is derived from the Latin pulso, meaning battered or beaten.  This might be because the flowers, top-heavy on their delicate stems, bob around and seem battered by the wind.

This segues nicely into a quick chat about anemones.  Most (but not all) sources agree that anemones were named for the Greek anemos, "wind," hence the common name of windflower.  Maybe, as some say, it's because the flowers only open when they're beaten by the wind, or on the other hand, won't open if the wind is blowing.
Maybe the Greek wind gods, the Anemoi, use these flowers to herald their arrival in spring.  Or maybe (and this is the one I like to believe) they're windflowers because their seeds are so obviously and perfectly adapted for wind dispersal.  Their tiny nut-like achenes (a one-seeded fruit) sport feathery plumes that just beg to be blown and tumbled across an open prairie.  Pulsatilla patens shares pretty much all characteristics with those of Anemone, except the hairy tails of their fruits are long like a kite.  Indeed, pasqueflower is often cited as Anemone patens.  

Common names for this plant can be confusing.  It's sometimes called prairie smoke (in reference to the hairy fruits), although this is more widely accepted as the common name for Geum triflorum.  Many sources list it as prairie crocus, although the garden-variety crocus we all know and love is actually in the iris family.  It's also known as the Easter flower, May Day flower, cutleaf anemone, and probably a host of other regional names.  

Tidbits
As with all of the Ranunculaceae crew, the pasqueflower contains poisonous compounds that can make you really sick, causing nausea, dizziness and a drop in blood pressure.  And as with pretty much all poisonous plants, there are numerous accounts of people using it medicinally to treat an array of ailments.  Here's what Montana Plant Life has to say...

Use of pasqueflower reportedly lessens sexual excitement. It does not diminish sexual power but rather strengthens it by lessening excitement. A drug derived from the chopped whole plant induces vomiting and irritation of the kidneys. In high doses it acts as a depressant on the central nervous system and the heart. A decoction of the plant was used by the Blackfoot Indians to speed delivery of a child.

Yeesh.  As always, proceed with caution.  Plants are crazy dangerous.  Durr.
I did think it was interesting, however, to find so many references to using mashed pasqueflower leaves as a "counter-irritant" for bruises, sore muscles and rheumatic joints.  Is this like when you have a toothache and someone offers to stomp on your foot to distract you from the pain?  Must be!  I do know these leaves are covered in little hairs, and handling them too much can be really irritating to sensitive skin.

Being a common plains wildflower, the toxins in pasqueflower can be a problem for domestic grazing animals.  I've also read that dense stands of pasqueflower is an indication that the land has been overgrazed, but can't find any decent explanation as to why this is.  Are they pioneer species, the first to colonize the disrupted ecosystem, or are they just growing in abundance because grazers selectively avoid them?
I did find some interesting reading on the decline of P. patens populations in boreal forests due to decreased grazing and increased fire suppression.  As domestic grazing declines and normal forest fire cycles are disrupted, the vegetation undergrowth gets thicker and more closed-in.  This has a pretty drastic effect on many species in the boreal ecosystem, especially those that grow in open sites with relatively small amounts of forest litter. 

Wild Gardening
By all means!  Seeds are easy to collect and don't require cold stratification, although the Native Plant Network does recommend a 60 day cold spell.  You can also divide clumps or take root cuttings in spring or late fall.  Keep them in the sun, in fairly dry soil, and know that plants might go dormant in drought conditions.  The flowers are lovely, and the feathery leaves last well into the summer.  Being such an early bloomer, pasqueflowers provide crucial nectar reserves for early emerging wild bee pollinators.  Try some in your rock garden!  Send me pictures.

Red Baneberry

Red Baneberry

Actaea rubra

Ranunculaceae (Buttercup Family)

Quick ID:  

Look in rich, moist thickets and shaded forests for this striking, relatively uncommon plant.  It can grow up to three feet high, with flowers appearing in early to mid-summer as fluffy clusters atop tall stalks.  The white flowers have lots of antenna-like stamens that wave out past the small petals.  Soon, the flowers fade and stalks of bright red berries take their place.

The species and subspecies of Actaea are closely related and not always easy to distinguish.  There is a white baneberry (A. pachypoda), but the red baneberry species (A. rubra) sometimes bears white fruit as well.  True white baneberries have thicker pedicels (flower-bearing stalks) than the "red" species.  You can recognize Actaea berries by the little buttons on their ends.  The white berries, with their pupil-like spots, have been used in the past as eyes for children's dolls, hence one of the common names for the plant, "Doll's Eyes".  Kind of creepy looking, if you ask me.   

Range:

Found through the northern temperate zones of North America and Eurasia.  In Montana, it's most likely to be spotted in the southern and western parts of the state (see the USDA range map)

What's in a Name?

The family name Ranunculaceae comes from the Latin rana, frog, in reference to its members' affinity for wet places.  Actaea is the Latin name for a generally strong-smelling plant.  The Greek aktea is the word for the elderberry tree (Sambucus sp.), whose leaves the baneberry resembles.  Rubra is a ubiquitous species name meaning "red".  The common name "baneberry" refers to its toxicity--bane ultimately comes from the ancient root gwhen-, "to murder or wound".

You might also hear baneberry called red cohosh, necklaceweed or snakeberry.    

Tidbits:

All parts of this plant are poisonous, with the toxin protoanemonin most concentrated in the berries and roots.  Symptoms include "the usual"--vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, stomach cramps--but the toxin ultimately acts on your heart, and can cause circulatory failure.  So don't eat it!  That said, people have been eating this plant for thousands of years.  North American Indian tribes have used a decoction of the roots to treat rheumatism, coughs and colds, and to improve the appetite.  It is said to increase milk production after childbirth, and decrease excessive menstrual bleeding.  A poultice of chewed leaves was used to soothe wounds, and there are several references to it being ingested to soothe stomach pains caused from swallowing hair. (Huh?)  But once again, unless you're a trained professional, please, don't eat it.  Eating as few as two berries can cause severe pain, and a few more can mean respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.

Baneberry is not, however, poisonous to livestock.  Sheep and horses will graze on it when there's not much else around, and elk will eat the foliage in the fall (Actaea foliage stays green late in the season, after most plants have withered in the frost).  Birds like Grouse, Gray Catbird (seen here), and American Robins also relish the berries, as do mice, squirrels, chipmunks and voles.

Wild Gardening:

Despite its murderous name, baneberry makes an excellent woodland garden perennial.  The foliage is lush, the flowers and fruit are highly ornamental, and it can take part to full shade.  It provides cover for small mammals and will attract songbirds to your yard.  Plants are not hard to find at nurseries, particularly those specializing in natives.  If you do decide to try propagating from seed, remember that, like many wildflowers, they need a period of cold stratification before they'll germinate, and it might take two seasons to get them to sprout.  Naturalize along with other moisture-loving species like twinberry, horsetail, thimbleberry, sedge, alder and aspen for a lush, verdant woodland garden.

Dwarf Mistletoe

Dwarf Mistletoe
Arceuthobium spp.
Viscaceae (Mistletoe Family)

What's in a Name? 
Viscaceae has the same root as "viscus," and refers to mistletoe's sticky berries, which were historically used to make birdlime. Handfuls of ripe berries were chewed or boiled, formed into long strands and coiled around tree branches. A bird lands on the sticky branch and there he stays, until the bird-eating hunter returns to pluck him off. This is illegal in many countries now, by the way. Birdlime was also used to manufacture British sticky bombs in WWII.

According to some accounts, "mistletoe," originally mistelta in Saxon, comes from three Sanskrit words: Mas (the Messiah), tal (the womb), and tu (motion to or from). This is the first clue to the enormous cultural power Mistletoe has held throughout history. Read on.

Quick ID:   
In Montana, you'll find Dwarf Mistletoe, which looks a bit like coral, clinging to branches of Ponderosa, Lodgepole and Limber Pine, Douglas Fir and Western Larch. It's a hemiparasite, relying on its host conifer for most of its water and nutrients. There are 42 species of Arceuthobium worldwide (21 endemic to the US) that prey on members of the Pine and Cypress families. All have greatly reduced leaves (just scales, really) with the bulk of the plant living inside the host. Here's how it works:

Remember those sticky berries? Well, they're not just built to help ancient bird-eaters trap their dinner, oh no. As the berries ripen, they swell with hydrostatic pressure, which builds and builds until POW! The fruits burst open, sending seeds flying through the air at 50 mph. If they're lucky, these sticky little seeds land on a suitable host plant and get to work. Their root-like "haustoria" grow into the xylem (water pipes) and phloem (food pipes) of the host, thus beginning its slow decline and eventual death.

Sometimes the best way to spot Dwarf Mistletoe is to look for the peculiar "witch's broom" growths it creates on trees. These dense masses of branches could be mistaken for bird's nests, but they're actually just a bunch of branches growing out from a single point, and can be caused by fungi, insects, mites, nematodes, viruses, frost, forest thinning . . . and, of course, mistletoe.

Tidbits:

Folklore and Fables... Dwarf Mistletoe is cousin to the American Mistletoe (Phoradendron flavescens), the leafy plant we all know from the holidays. The mythology of mistletoe goes back thousands of years, far beyond that quick kiss at Christmas.  Perhaps it's because mistletoe's evergreen leaves seem a symbol of everlasting life (ironic, since it's also known as the "Vampire Plant" that sucks the life out of its host).

Throughout history and worldwide, mistletoe is considered a bestower of fortune, aphrodesiac, antidote to poison and curer of ills. In the Christian faith, mistletoe (mistelta) represented the time between the conception and birth of Jesus, and was supposedly "applied" to him as an infant...whatever that means. Mistletoe was considered sacred long before that, however.
  

Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) wrote of the Druids' relationship with the plant, which they held to be the most sacred of all living things save oaks (the Gaelic word druidh means "oak-knower"). European Mistletoe figured prominently in Greek mythology, and Romanians still use the plant for its magical and medicinal properties. The use of mistletoe at Christmas dates back to the 18th century, but kissing under the mistletoe comes from a Norse myth. The story, basically, is this:

Baldr, god of vegetation, was killed by a spear made of mistletoe. His death brought winter to the world (no good!) so the gods restored him. His mom Frigga declared mistletoe sacred, a bringer of love rather than death. To celebrate Baldr's happy return, any two people passing under the plant now must make the obligatory smooch.

In Scandinavia, it's still considered a plant of peace, under which enemies can declare a truce or quarreling lovers make up.

Medicine... The plant has been purported to cure cancer and epilepsy, among other things. Suzanne Sommers made headlines when she opted for a mistletoe extract (Iscador) in lieu of chemotherapy following her treatment for breast cancer. There are several accounts, however, of mistletoe's poisonous properties that should not be taken lightly!

Ecology... Many Dwarf Mistletoe species are considered to be serious threats to forest health. Severe infection can lead to reduced growth, seed and cone development, poor wood quality, increased susceptibility to disease and insect attacks, and premature death. Most of western North America's commercially important conifers are hosts to at least one Dwarf Mistletoe species.  Interestingly, higher rates of mistletoe infestation have been linked with higher numbers and greater diversity of birds and other animals, perhaps by creating more nesting sites within the tell-tale witch's broom.

Sagebrush Buttercup

Sagebrush Buttercup

Ranunculus glaberrimus

Ranunculaceae (Buttercup Family)

What's in a Name?  

The genus Ranunculus comes from the Latin word for frog (rana) because many species grow in wet places.  This species, however, is most often found in sagebrush steppe and on open pine forest floors  Glaberrimus means totally glabrous, or without hairs.

Quick ID:  

One of the earliest wildflowers; look for Sagebrush Buttercup blooming now through June in Missoula!  Plants are fleshy and 5-20 cm high (smaller than the similar native Mountain Buttercup, Ranunculus eschscholtzii).  Leaves are very smooth, round to three-toothed, clustered mostly at the base.  The shiny yellow flowers are about the size of a quarter.  It's sometimes confused with Silvery Cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea), but they're easily told apart.  P. argentea has 5 pointy bracts alternating with its yellow petals and toothy, palmate leaves.

Range:

From BC to New Mexico and California east to the Dakotas.  Found in most parts of Montana (map)

Tidbits:  

Ranunculus is toxic to eat (including to horses and livestock), and can cause mild burning or blistering skin if handled.  The Okanagan-Colville Indians of the Pacific Northwest used sagebrush buttercups placed on a piece of meat as poisoned bait for coyotes, and rubbed flowers or whole plants on arrow points as a poison.  The toxin is unstable, and destroyed by boiling or drying.

Children all over the world play the "Do you like butter?" game, checking if the golden yellow flowers reflect off their pals' chins.  This sketch is from the Royal Academy Notes for 1889.  Some things never change.  

Wild gardening:

A cold-hardy perennial that brings early spring color; Sagebrush Buttercups need a sunny, well-watered spot.  Sources for seeds and plants may be hard to find, but worth trying.  The bright yellow petals secrete nectar, attracting an array of native bees and other pollinators.  They're also one of the first true heralds of spring, braving the still-icy winds as a promise of warm days to come.

This blog entry was originally created for the Montana Natural History Center.  Check out the original post here