Colorado Wildflowers - Deer Creek in June

Red Mesa Trail

Rocky Section of Red Mesa Trail

This week, the first week of June 2013, I returned to Deer Creek Canyon Park in the Rocky Mountain foothills for a 7.75 mile trail run. My husband and I arrived at the trailhead earlier than normal because I wanted to run the Red Mesa loop. The wildflowers were gorgeous, especially the purple Beardtongue, yellow Arnica, and yellow Banner. There weren't very many mountain bikers on the trail this week but there were a lot of hikers and runners. Someone said that some of the runners were from a Boulder running club.

My wildflower obsession has me stopping frequently on the trail when I see a flower that I haven't seen yet this year or if I just want a closer look because I'm trying to figure out what something is. That may make me a bad running partner but my husband was patient and even seems to notice flowers more than he used to! The women I run with appreciate wildflowers too and they don't seem to mind my stopping when I run with them.

The Red Mesa trail is a forested trail that has some steep rocky sections as you can see from the photo. There are a lot of rocky uphill sections at Deer Creek so you can see why I would stop often.

I have photographed many of the same kinds of flowers the past few years - Indian Paintbrush, Beardtongue, Chiming Bells, etc. I am discovering though that the more I learn about wildflowers, the more curious I am about the ones that I don't know by now. And yes, I am becoming a bit obsessive about documenting the flowers I see. I am learning that I have to do a better job of focusing the camera on my close-ups. I'm getting a few blurry photos every week. The flower below was an orange flower that I saw in the weeds near the trail head and in only one other place on the trail. I rarely see reds and oranges so a clear photo would have been nice. Based on Doctor Dubler's photo collection, I think this is a Copper Mallow, also known as Cowboy's Delight.

Copper Mallow

White Flowers

Colorado is a semi arid state so I often see pricklypear cactus and Yucca plants on the trails in the foothills. This week, I saw a Yucca plant with blooms that were open. I got close to it and saw that it was covered with small insects. I also saw some Canada Violets in a more forested area. (See my May Mount Falcon post for a picture of Yellow Violets). I don't know what this spiky looking white flower is; I only saw it once. I took a couple of other photos of white flowers that I am not familiar with but my picture quality was poor.

Yucca

Canada Violet

Yellow Flowers

I am trying not to be too repetitive in posting photos of flowers this summer but the Yellow Banner flowers were really incredible this week. I also saw some flowers that resemble Sedum (Stonecrop). When I moved to my house, Stonecrop was growing in the rock border of our back yard. The Toadflax and Sulfur flower were more prevalent in the lower elevations of the hiker only Meadowlark trail. The Foothills Arnica has blooms that are similar to the Heartleaf Arnica I saw last week at Lair o' the Bear.

Sedum (Stonecrop)

Yellow Banner

Sulphur Flower

Toadflax

Foothills Arnica

Purple Flowers

I only saw one Lupine plant on this run; last year I first saw them in May. At Mount Falcon on Memorial Day, I saw my first Beardtongue of the year. This week on the Red Mesa trail, I saw a few different types. According to the Southwest Colorado wildflowers site, there are more than 250 species of Penstemons in North America. It also says that Penstemons are part of the Snapdragon family, one of my favorite flowers. On my way back down Plymouth Trail, which runs next to a creek, a flower close to the water caught my eye - the flower below that has a bit of yellow on it. I don't know what it is but perhaps it is a Johnny Jump-Up. (Update: Dr. Dubler's Colorado Wildflowers page on Facebook has a similar picture of a Shooting Star).

Lupine

Penstemon

Penstemon

Shooting Star