Natural History Wanderings

Mount Rainier National Park (U.S. National Park Service) reports

Currently Blooming – Updated June 29, 2016
While visitors often look for the colorful subalpine wildflowers, another wildflower Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) often goes overlooked. Yarrow is a common and versatile, growing widely from low to high elevations and so is often dismissed. However this unobtrusive plant with its tiny white flowers is also know for its medicinal properties. Tribes such as the Squamish used it to cure measles, while the Squaxin liked it as a stomach tonic. It was used for everything from cold medicine to wound poultice.

Many wildflowers are coming out along roadsides and in other areas where snow has melted away. However, subalpine meadows are still covered with patchy snow and wildflowers are just getting started. Look for early season flowers like glacier and avalanche lilies around Paradise, while pasqueflower is starting to bloom around Sunrise.

Wildflower Reports

• Sunrise Road (6/28) – paintbrush, penstemon, phlox, pasqueflower, sitka mountain ash, glacier lily, tiger lily, mountain dandelion, yarrow, magenta paintbrush
• White River (6/28) – starflower, vanilla leaf, buttercup, bunchberry, tiger lily, lupine (few)
• Paradise Valley Road (6/27) – sitka mountain ash (early), sitka valerian, pink mountain heather, avalanche lily, glacier lily
• Longmire to Paradise Road (moving up in elevation) (6/27) – tiger lily, cow parsnip, thimbleberry, goats beard, thistle, bear grass, yarrow, penstemon, rosy spirea, paintbrush, jeffrey’s shooting star, sitka valerian, bluebells, subalpine daisy
• Longmire (6/22) – bunchberry, pipsissewa, foam flower, pinesap; (6/16) cow parsnip, lupine, coralroot, bog orchid, salal, common speedwell, candyflower, gnomeplant, starwort, curly dock, yarrow, fringecup, buttercup, wood sorrel, twin flower, tiny trumpet
• Nisqually Entrance to Longmire (6/22) – columbine, buttercup; (6/16) cow parsnip, goat’s beard, tiger lily, coral root, candy stick
• Snow Lake Trail (6/4) – avalanche lilies
• Stevens Canyon (6/4) – cliff penstemon, harsh paintbrush, bear grass, western columbine