Colorado Wildflowers - Chimney Gulch in May

2015 Update:

May of 2015 was very wet. We had our last snow the Saturday before Mother's Day. May 28th was a beautiful day so I went to Chimney Gulch for an evening trail run. One of the things I love about May is the flowering shrubs - Chokecherry, Serviceberry and Boulder Raspberry.

Narrowleaf Puccoon

Penstemon

Tufted Evening Primrose

Chokecherry

2013:

When I go on summer hikes and trail runs, I like to take my camera and take pictures of the scenery and wildflowers. As the title of this post suggests, this year I am going to post my flower pictures by month so I can chronicle how things change over the summer. This week I went on my first trail run of the year at Chimney Gulch Trail. My first two planned weekly trail runs were cancelled due to rain. We had snow on the first of May and rain frequently since then. I'm hoping the moisture will be good for my wildflower viewing well into the summer.

View of the trail looking towards Golden

Last year, when I took wildflower pictures, I tried to identify them by color by searching on sites like Wildflowers of Colorado. This site features the photography of Dr. Mary L Dubler, DVM, in Fort Collins. One of the things I like about her photographs is that you can see both the bloom and the leaves which makes it much easier to figure out the names of the flowers I photograph. I discovered that Dr. Dubler has a Facebook page so I can follow the pictures she shares this summer.

I found another link, Colorado Wildflowers, that allows you to search for wildflowers by color and by the month that they bloom. Evidently, wallflowers typically bloom in March and April but I've been lucky enough to see a few of them in May. Last year I took a picture of an orange wallflower, also in May.

Western Wallflower

I was excited to discover little white flowers called Sand Lilies, that remind me of snow crocuses. I also saw hollygrape next to the trail; this is one of the flowers that I learned to recognize this same time last year.

Sand Lily

Hollygrape

A second new flower to me was the Pasque flower. I discovered the name of this one on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Facebook page after I first visited their website to read about Staunton, a new Colorado state park that just opened southwest of Denver. According to Colorado Wildflowers, the Pasque flower is from the buttercup family and the word Pasque is French for Easter.

Pasque flower

When I ran close to a stream that runs through the park, I could smell something fragrant, possibly some  flowering shrubs.

Serviceberry

A third Colorado wildflowers website that I have visited frequently, wildflowerchild, features pictures that the photographer took on hikes from 2005-2009. She (I'm guessing) noted when and where she took her photos; many were taken in the same parks I frequent. Yet another website, Eastern Colorado Wildflowers, lets you search for wildflowers by color, zone, and month. The parks I visit most frequently are in the Foothills zone (6,500 to 8,000 feet).  

I'm not always able to identify the flowers that I photograph. There's a good chance that some of them may be weeds! (Update 5/31/2013 - the second flower below has been identified as Golden Draba.)

Myrtle Spurge (noxious weed)

Fiddle Leaf Twin Pod

Mouse ear (chickweed)