Purple wildflowers can bee found along every trail in the Sandia Mountains during the summer! This blog post is part of my attempt to catalogue wildflowers so I can learn more about them. Since there are so many, I’ve decided to create posts based on flower color to ease identification attempts. I’ve also included the trails that I’ve seen them growing along if you want to see them too. Enjoy!
Pinewoods Geranium (Geranium caespitosum)
Description from Wikipedia: “The purple cluster geranium or pineywoods geranium, is a perennial herb native to the western United States and northern Mexico. Its US distribution includes Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. It has a purple to red flower with 5 stamens, and the sepals are acuminate, tapering with a long point. It has palmately lobed leaves. The fruit is a schizocarp made up of 5 mericarps. Flowers bloom May to September. Geranium caespitosum has fleshy roots that penetrate deeply into the soil. It grows in damp soils, as in the understory of coniferous forests and in canyons.”
Sandia Trails where the wildflower can be seen:
- Cienega Trail No. 148, Sandia Mountains, NM
Richardson’s Geranium (Geranium richardsonii)
Description from Wikipedia: “It is native to western North America from Alaska to New Mexico, where it can be found in a number of habitats, especially mountains and forests. This is a perennial herb varying in maximum height from 20 to 80 centimeters. The plant grows from a tough, woody taproot and older plants develop rhizomes. The leaves are up to 15 centimeters wide and are divided into generally five segments, each segment subdivided into small rounded or pointed lobes. The flower has five pointed sepals beneath five rounded petals, each one to two centimeters long. The petals are white to purple with darker purple veining. The fruit has a small body with a straight style up to 2.5 centimeters long.”
Sandia Trails where the wildflower can be seen:
- Cienega Trail No. 148, Sandia Mountains, NM
American Dragonhead (Dracocephalum parviflorum)
Description from Wikipedia: “A wild North American mint growing across much of the United States (especially in the Great Lakes region and in the deserts and mountains of the West), as well as much of Canada and Alaska. It grows as either an annual or biennial, producing clusters of small pink to violet flowers in whorls at the ends of many branching stems. The seeds are small (about 2 mm), dark, and high in oil content, about 20%. A 2006 study suggests that this mint may have application as a commercial birdseed crop in Alaska.”
Sandia Trails where the wildflower can be seen:
- Cienega Trail No. 148, Sandia Mountains, NM
Rocky Mountain Penstemon (Penstemon strictus)
Description from Wikipedia: “This species is a herbaceous perennial with a few stems rising nearly straight up from a thick crown. The leaves are long and narrow, with stem leaves smaller and especially narrower than the basal leaves. The leaves are entire and smooth, or possibly downy near the petiole. The inflorescence is a spike (technically a thyrse of 4 to 10 verticillasters). The corolla is 24 to 32 mm (1 to 1.5 inches) long, deep blue with a violet tube, and smooth. The two upper petals point straight along the tube, like a porch roof (hence the seldom-used name “porch penstemon”). The seed capsules are 8 to 13 mm long.”
Habitat Description from Wikipedia: “This flower is native to the region from southern Wyoming and western Colorado south to northeastern Arizona and northern New Mexicowith an isolated population in Mono County, California It is found in piñon-juniper woods, with scrub oak, or in open areas in ponderosa pine and spruce-aspen forest, often associated with sagebrush.”
Sandia Trails where the wildflower can be seen:
- Cienega Trail No. 148, Sandia Mountains, NM
Silvery Lupine (Lupinus argenteus)
Description from Wikipedia: “It is native to much of western North America from the southwestern Canadian provinces to the southwestern and midwestern United States, where it grows in several types of habitat, including sagebrush, grassland, and forests. This is a perennial herb growing erect to heights anywhere between 10 centimetres (3.9 in) and 1.5 metres (4.9 ft). It is sometimes silvery-hairy in texture and sometimes nearly hairless. Each palmate leaf is made up of 5 to 9 leaflets each up to 6 centimetres long. They are narrow and linear in shape, under a centimetre wide. The inflorescence bears many flowers, sometimes arranged in whorls. The flower is 5 millimetres (0.20 in) to 14 millimetres (0.55 in) long and purple, blue, or whitish in color. The banner, or upper petal, of the flower may have a patch of white or yellow. The fruit is a hairy legume pod up to 3 centimeters long containing several beanlike seeds. The plant is an important food source for butterflies. It also attracts birds and hummingbirds.”
Sandia Trails where the wildflower can be seen:
- Cienega Trail No. 148, Sandia Mountains, NM
Pitcher’s Leatherflower (Clematis pitcheri)
Description from Wikipedia: “A species of flowering plant in the buttercup family known by the common name bluebill. It is a herbaceous, perennial vine found in the south-central United States and northern Mexico. It grows in wooded, rocky outcrops, woodland margins, bluffs, and disturbed habitats. Leaves are variable, oppositely arranged along the stems, and can be simple or compound. In the fall it will die back to ground level.”
Sandia Trails where the wildflower can be seen:
- Cienega Trail No. 148, Sandia Mountains, NM
Other Related Posts:
- Cienega Trail No. 148, Sandia Mountains, NM