Читать книгу Afoot and Afield: Portland/Vancouver. A Comprehensive Hiking Guide онлайн

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If you want to see great wildflower displays, get out of the forest and head for the meadows. In the lower-elevation valleys, you need to find one of those increasingly rare places that has yet to be paved over or plowed under. The most striking flower in these fields is blue camas, a plant that was once an important food source for Native Americans.

There is greater variety in the mountains. Depending on the elevation, the higher meadows provide spectacular displays any time from mid-June through mid-August. Just as the snow melts, the ground comes alive with the blossoms of glacier lily, avalanche lily, and western pasqueflower. A little later, you enjoy cinquefoil, lupine, paintbrush, spiraea, shooting star, yarrow, and, perhaps most notable of all, beargrass. By the end of summer, the meadows still have some flowers, especially asters, goldenrods, and blue gentians, which bloom well into September.

The banks of creeks feature lush vegetation and a unique array of water-loving flowering plants. Of particular note are yellow monkeyflower and pink Lewis monkeyflower, false Solomon’s seal, and bleeding heart. Dry and rocky places have wildflowers better adapted to these environments. Here you may find yellow stonecrop, blue larkspur, lavender cliff penstemon, and the whites of pearly everlasting, prairie star, and cats ear, among others.