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Some plants are unforgettable because they are appropriately named. Steer's Head (Dicentra uniflora) is one such plant. The plant's pinkish-cream-colored flower resembles the skull of a Texas longhorn.

Steer's Head is one of the earliest bloomers.  It is often found just a few feet from the edge of a melting snowbank. Steer's Head may be overlooked—the color of its tiny flower blends in with rocky soils covered by pine needles. The plant is most easily spotted by searching for its grayish-blue-green divided leaf.

The flower and leaf stems of the Steer's Head attach below ground and sometimes do not look like they belong to the same plant. Once you locate one plant, look around for more because these plants are often observed in "herds."

Steer's Head's cousin,  Pacific Bleeding Heart (Dicentra formosa), also has a fitting name.  The heart-shaped flowers of this plant may not immediately resemble the Steer's Head flower. Imagine pulling back the spreading tips of the Bleeding Heart's petals. They will resemble the "horns" of the Steer Head's flower. 

Pacific Bleeding Heart and Steer's Head plants are part of the poppy family, Papaveraceae.  Characteristic of the poppy family, both plants have highly divided, fern-like, blue-green leaves. 

Pacific Bleeding Heart can be found in moist, shaded locations.

The Elephant's Head (Pedicularis groenlandica) of the paintbrush family, Orobanchaceae, is another aptly named and unforgettable plant. It grows from one to three feet tall and has a stem containing numerous small flowers (an inflorescence). Each flower resembles an elephant's head with floppy ears and a trunk. Elephant's Head grows in wet meadows and along streams.

A related plant of Elephant's Head, Little Elephant's Head (Pedicularis attollens), has smaller flowers and a more cartoonish elephant face with distinct eye spots. It inhabits similar environments as the larger species but has a later bloom season.

Crimson Columbine (Aquilegia formosa) is common in the Sierra Mountains and California's coastal regions.  It grows from one to three feet in partial shade of moist forested areas, meadows, and along stream banks. The leafy portion of the plant forms a mound.  Long branched stems rise above the mound and produce several beautiful nodding flowers with red to red-orange and yellow pigmentation.  Native Americans used this plant for several medicinal purposes.  Caution: columbine plants are toxic.

Sierra Columbine (Aquilegia pubescens) is a California endemic species limited to subalpine forests and alpine fell fields of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Sierra Columbine's flowers are larger than the flowers of Crimson Columbine and are more erect  (less nodding). Flowers are white, cream, or yellow with tinges of pink.  

Hummingbirds pollinate the lower elevation Crimson Columbine, while moths pollinate the higher elevation Sierra Columbine. In areas where the ranges of the two species overlap, the same animal may pollinate both species. This sometimes results in stunningly beautiful hybrid plants with larger Sierra Columbine flowers and the expression of color genes from Crimson Columbine.

Aquilegia formosa X Aquilegia pubescens HYBRID

In his book The Yosemite (1912), John Muir wrote, “The Snow Plant  (Sarcodes sanguinea) is more admired by tourists than any other in California.”  Visitors have continued to be intrigued by this plant for the 110+ years since Muir's statement. Snow Plants are among the most recognizable plants in California. They are easy to locate and identify as their bright red bodies contrast strikingly against the brown hues of the forest floor.  

The Snow Plant obtained its name from the perception that it grows through melting snow. This rarely happens. It is more likely for an already emerging plant to be covered with the snow from a late spring storm. 

Snow Plants generally grow to about a foot in height. The above-ground portion consists of a thick stalk supporting multiple flowers and bracts: the large size and bright color aid pollinators in locating snow plants. 

Snow Plants lack the green pigment chlorophyll and do not perform photosynthesis. Instead, they obtain carbon compounds from soil fungi (mycorrhizae). The soil fungi have a mutually beneficial relationship with conifers. The fungi enhance the tree's uptake of water and nutrients. In return, the trees provide the fungi with carbon compounds. The carbon is then shuttled to the Snow Plants, but Snow Plants provide the fungi nothing in return. Thus, the Snow Plant is a parasite of the fungus.

You may be surprised to learn several entirely parasitic plants exist in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They are less well-known than Snow Plants because they are smaller, not as brightly pigmented, or less common. They all share a lack of chlorophyll, the pigment that makes plants green.  Parasitic plants are reddish, yellow, purple, or white. They lack or have reduced leaves, consisting mainly of roots and stems supporting flowers.  A few examples of parasitic plants follow.

Pine Drops (Pterospora andromedea) are common but often overlooked parasitic plants in the understory of California's yellow pine and red fir forests.  From a distance, plants may look like two to three-foot knobby sticks poking out of the soil. These are the plants' stems and flowers. Like Snow Plants, Pine Drops are non-photosynthetic plants and rely on soil fungi for survival.   

Striped Coralroot  (Corallorhiza striata) and the two following plants (Spotted Coralroot and Phantom Orchid) are parasitic orchids found in California's Sierra and coastal mountains. All three plants grow in decomposing leaf litter where the fungi they parasitize are abundant. Like Snow Plants and Pine Drops, fungi function as intermediates in carbon transfer from nearby trees to these parasitic orchids.

Spotted Coralroot (Corallorhiza maculata) and Striped Coralroot may grow in the same forest.  They both have reddish/brownish or yellowish coloration.  Striped Coralroot has larger flowers with distinct stripes on the sepals and petals.  The lower lip generally has wider red stripes.  Spotted Coralroot has a white lower lip with or without spots.

Spotting an elusive Phantom Orchid (Cephalanthera austiniae) is always a treat. It is found in the shade of an open forest, often on slopes and near bodies of water. The plant is white except for yellow on the flower's lower lip.  

Unlike the other parasitic plants described here, broomrape plants parasitize plant roots directly. Several broomrape species reside in California. Flat-topped Broomrape (Aphyllon corymbosum) occurs primarily in the Eastern Sierra, where it is a parasite of Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) roots. Flowers are a pale grayish or yellowish pink outside, making them difficult to spot against rocky substrate. They are deeper pink inside with dark veins. 

Clustered Broomrape (Aphyllon fasciculatum) and Purple or Naked Broomrape (Aphyllon purpureum) are also found in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Clustered Broomrape is a pale yellow or sometimes pink plant with numerous flower stalks. It parasitizes roots of sagebrush, buckwheat, bedstraw, or Yerba Santa plants.

Purple Broomrape (insert) is a small, single stalk, purple plant that parasitizes plants of the stonecrop, sunflower, or saxifrage families.

Dodder plants employ an entirely different parasitic strategy. The Canyon Dodder (Cuscuta subinclusa) has golden stems that look like silly-string. These stems blanket the host plant and twine around the host plant’s stems. At points where the stems of the parasite and host are in contact, specialized roots known as haustoria grow from the parasite’s stem to penetrate the host plant. Dodder obtains water and nutrients from the host’s vascular tissue via the haustoria. 

Canyon Dodder produces clusters of tiny, white, bell-shaped flowers. The seeds germinate in the soil and have only days to locate, grow towards, and attach to an appropriate host, or they will die. The seedlings identify host plants by detecting chemicals the host plant releases into the air.  

When most of us think of orchids, we envision the showy tropical epiphytic (growing on other plants) orchids sold in nurseries or used for corsages. California’s orchids, in contrast, are terrestrial, primarily small, not particularly colorful, and often overlooked. Although inconspicuous, California orchids abound with interspecies interactions hidden in plain sight.

Orchids have tiny seeds containing little nutrition. Consequently, orchid seeds require symbiotic relationships with soil fungi to obtain the nutrition needed for seed germination. As with the non-photosynthetic orchids addressed in the previous section, some photosynthesizing orchids maintain these fungal associations throughout their lives. Orchids also have complex, highly specific, and sometimes deceptive relationships with pollinators. 

Plathanthera is the largest orchid genus in North America. Plathanthera species have lip petals that curl in front and extend back to form a sac-like spur. The length of each species’ spur corresponds to the length of its pollinator’s (moth or butterfly) tongue. 

Because of its height, numerous flowers, long flowering period, and wide distribution, the White Bog Orchid (Platanthera dilatata) is the orchid you will most likely encounter and recognize in the Sierras. White Bog Orchids always have white flowers and spurs longer than the lips. They grow in seeps, meadows, and along streams in full sun or partial shade.

The Sparsely-flowered Bog Orchid (Platanthera sparsiflora) looks much like the White Bog Orchid and grows in similar habitats. Green flowers of Sparsely-flowered Bog Orchids distinguish them from similar plants. The flower spurs are about the same length as the lips.

The Dense-flowered Rein Orchid (Piperia elongata) is another green orchid that may look like the Sparse-flowered Bog Orchid to the casual observer. The Dense-flowered Rein Orchid has shorter sepals and petals and a longer spur. The plant has only basal leaves, lacking leaves on the stem. This rein orchid grows in dry forests, whereas the Sparse-flowered Bog Orchid is found in wet environments.

Royal Rein Orchids (Piperia transversa) are also found in dry woodlands. The plants have two leaves at their base, which wither before flowering to give the appearance of leafless flower stems. Royal Rein Orchids have flowers with almost horizontal spurs that are much longer than the lips.

Charles Darwin first studied and described the pollination mechanism of Spiranthes species, such as Hooded Ladies' Tresses (Spiranthes romanzoffiana). Young flowers only partly open, preventing bee pollinators from accessing the nectary. As bees probe for nectar, they pick up pollen. Older flowers open wider, allowing the pollinator to reach the nectary. Pollen from the previous flower is transferred to the sticky stigma, promoting cross-pollination.

Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia) is found in full to partial shade in thick humus of coniferous forests at low and mid-elevations. A young plant may take several years to bloom. When it does, the buds mature slowly and will not open until late summer. The flower petals are white and slightly translucent. The sepals are white with tinges of green. The Rattlesnake Plantain is pollinated by bumblebees, utilizing the same pollination mechanism as Hooded Ladies' Tresses. 

Even without flowers, Rattlesnake Plantain is easy to recognize from its rosette of evergreen white-veined leaves. The leaf markings are highly variable. Generally, the midrib is white, but markings may be more extensive and quite beautiful. Rattlesnake Plantain grows in the same forests as White-veined Wintergreen (Pyrola picta), also having evergreen leaves with white vein leaf markings. The photo shows Rattlesnake Plantain at the top and White-veined Wintergreen below for comparison.

The distribution of Mountain Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium montanum)  extends from Southern Alaska to the Central Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mountain Lady’s slipper may grow to over two feet in height under varied light and moisture conditions.

The flower of the Mountain lady’s Slipper consists of three long, narrow, brownish-red sepals and two similar appearing twisted petals. A third petal forms a white pouch. Inside the white petal pouch are reddish nectar guides and scented hairs. 

The nectar guides and hairs attract and direct insect pollinators, flies, or solitary bees into the pouch. Pollinators are led through a one-way passage where sticky pollen sacs attach to them. Ideally, pollen is transferred to the next flower visited by the insects. Pollinators are deceived and lured into the flower but receive no nectar reward.

The Stream Orchid or Chatterbox (Epipactis gigantea) is another large orchid in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It may grow over three feet tall and contain numerous flowers per stem. Stream Orchids can reproduce via rhizomes, sometimes resulting in large cloned populations.  

Stream Orchids grow only where their roots receive a continuous water supply. Although the Stream Orchid plant is large, the flowers are often less than two inches wide and may be difficult to spot among the dense foliage of its wet environment. However, the plant’s flowers are impressive, with green, pink, and yellow at close inspection. 

Like the mountain lady’s slipper, the stream orchid deceives its pollinator. In this case, the flies pollinating stream orchids typically lay eggs in aphid nests. The aphids become food for the fly’s growing larvae. The scent of the stream orchid flower mimics that of aphids, prompting flies to lay eggs in stream orchid flowers. No aphids are present on the flower, so the hatched fly larvae die. The orchid benefits as adult flies transfer pollen sacs from one flower to another.

The Flower Symmetry section of the Flower Morphology page introduced the Centaury Plant of the gentian family Gentianaceae. Other plants from this family may surprise you as they appear much different than the Centaury Plant and each other. With exceptions, gentian family plants have opposite leaves with smooth edges that lack leaf stalks. Petals overlap and twist when in the bud. Sepals, petals, and stamens are four or five in number. Sepals and petals are fused.  

Due to its large size, the Monument Plant (Frasera speciosa) of the gentian family is one of the most recognizable plants in the Sierra. It is a perennial that can live for decades before blooming. For most of its life, the above-ground plant consists of a large rosette of leaves that die back each winter. As the plant prepares to produce flowers, it grows a stalk from two to over seven feet tall that towers over other plants in its meadow and open woodland habitats.  

The Monument Plant flowers only once before dying, but it does so with splendor, producing hundreds of flowers. Blooming is sporadic yet synchronized with other nearby but spatially separated plants of the same species. This strategy may deter herbivores who cannot rely on predictable flowering. The Monument Plant utilizes various pollinators, assuring some are available and pollination rates are high in the erratically timed flowering years.

Typically, each Monument Plant flower has long pointed sepals, pale cream-yellow-green petals having purple spotting, and two fringed nectaries. The anthers are large, and the central pistil is prominent. Collectively, these features create an unusual and impressive flower.

California is home to eight Frasera species and several varieties. Kern Frasera (Frasera tubulosa) is an endemic southern Sierra Nevada species with limited distribution. The plant can grow to over three feet or may be much smaller, a dwarf compared to its giant cousin the Monument Plant. Leaves are linear and whorl around the base of the stem. Flowers are white to pale blue with darker blue veins. The plant lives in open conifer forests between 6,000 and 9,000 feet.

The next four gentians are all late summer bloomers that grow in wet meadow environments. Pictured here is a population of Sierra Alpine Gentian (Gentiana newberry). Each plant has a rosette of leaves just above ground level. The stem attaches below these leaves. It grows horizontally at first and then turns upward, having additional stem leaves and terminating with a disproportionally large flower to a height of about four inches. Each plant usually has one, but up to five flowers. 

The flowers of Sierra Alpine Gentian have white or blue fused petals. Jagged, multiple-tipped accessory structures between each petal lobe are pigmented to match the inside petal. Petal lobes have green spots inside. Smaller green spots form the appearance of green lines further down the corolla tube. The exterior of the petals is marked with brown-maroon bands, creating a candy-stripe appearance.  

Two varieties of Sierra Alpine Gentian are found in the Sierra. Gentiana newberry tiogana is the smaller variety with white or pale blue flowers. A less common Gentiana newberry newberry, is the larger variety, with darker blue flowers.

The gentian family is known for including species with the most genuine blue colors. Hiker's Fringed Gentian (Gentianopsis simplex) has pale or intense, true-blue or purple flowers. The blue fringed petals contrast with the white throat of the corolla. This plant has a single flower stem and grows from 1.5-16 inches in wet locations at 4,000-11,000 feet.

A similar but higher-altitude species, 5,000-13,000 feet, the Sierra Gentian (Gentianopsis holopetala) also grows in wet meadows and blooms in late summer. The petal lobes of Sierra Gentian are broader and shorter than Hikers Fringed Gentian. Sierra Gentian’s sepals are green, often with a central maroon mid-rib. The lower portion of the corolla is white, with purple longitudinal lines extending from the purple petal lobes. A plant may have one to several stems.

Unlike the other small, late-blooming meadow gentians presented, Autumn Dwarf Gentian (Gentianella amarella) has multiple flowers per stalk. Its flowers are rose-violet, blue, or white, with a distinctive fringe on the inner petals. The plant is two-32 inches tall and grows at 5,000-11,500 feet. Autumn Dwarf Gentian’s distribution includes both North America and Eurasia. 

Only two peony species are native to the Americas, and both are found in California. California Peony (Paeonia californica) is restricted to the coastal mountains of southern California and Baja California, while Brown’s Peony (Paeonia brownii)) has a broader distribution growing in eight western U.S. states. In California, Brown’s peony is found in northern mountain regions. You will likely only see these plants in the wild, as both species are challenging to cultivate.

Brown’s Peony grows about one foot tall. Its leaves are thick and grayish blue-green, with multiple divisions. It is easiest to locate the flowers by first recognizing the plant. Flowers droop and may be hidden by leaves. When flowers are visible, the sepals frequently block other flower structures from an overhead view.

The one to two-inch flower of Brown’s Peony is distinctive and unforgettable. Both the sepals and petals are thick. A flower typically has five green or maroon sepals. The petals are maroon to red and yellow at the edges. Petals range in number from five to ten. Yellow stamens contrast nicely with the reddish petals. Stamens are variable in number and numerous; nearly 100 may be present. Two to five large carpels are yellow-green, turning to orange at maturity.