wild pretties

Flowers blooming along my hiking trail.

This has got to be one of the cutest wildflowers. It reminds me of mouse ears for some reason.

It's too bad that the bright flowers of the scorpionweed (Phacelia integrifolia) are set upon a plant with yellowing leaves (at the base) and brown background. It took some doing to get a nice photo. Here you can see why it is called scorpionweed.

If I remember correctly, this is called a scorpioid cyme, which evolved from a dichasium , which is a type of monochasium that evolved from a dichasium. Or is it that a scorpioid cyme is another term for a monochasium? Or is a scorpioid cyme totally different from a monochasium?

I'm not sure what this is, although one day I'll have to look it up.

I thought this was a pretty boring plant until I read in Wild Plants of the Pueblo Province (Dunmire and Tierney) that it was edible, called wild celery I think, and that it had two tubers in sequence: one closer to the surface of the soil, and one much deeper, with a very thin connected threadlike connection. The thought is that by the time someone (or some animal) dug deep enough to excavate the first root, he'd think that the thin thread was the end. and wouldn't dig deeper. Then the deeper root could survive.  Cool, huh? That being said, it is usually the leaves that were harvested by humans. I couldn't bring myself to take and taste one of the plant's few leaves though.