Rocky Mountain National Park Wildflowers

Since July is peak wildflower season in the Rocky Mountains, we constantly found ourselves saying how pretty all the flowers were, immediately followed by, “I wonder what it’s called.”  So I took pictures of what I could and found this awesome wildflower website with names and images of the flowers in the region.  I learned from reading the RMNP website that many of the plants in the tundra are decades old.  It said that a four inch pincushion plant might be 50 years old and a tiny flower could have a root system reaching over three feet underground.  No wonder there were tons of signs telling us to stay off the tundra!

We saw many more that I didn’t take pictures of, but these were some of the most common ones we came across.  I truly believe that much of their beauty is derived from their environment, that they can grow in the most unlikely of circumstances and put on a show that only lasts a short time.  I looked up tons of pictures to try to identify these flowers and based the identification on the picture match and the environment we saw them in (alpine, subalpine, montane, dry, wet).  Some of the yellow ones were very hard to distinguish.  If you notice an error, please let me know in the comments!

One Sided Penstemon
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Fireweed
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Fireweed
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Narrow Leaved Paintbrush
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Yellow Pondlily, Waterlily
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Goldenrod
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Red: Narrow Leaved Paintbrush   Yellow: Goldenrod   Purple: Aspen Daisy
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Red: Narrow Leaved Paintbrush   Yellow: Goldenrod   Purple: Aspen Daisy
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Mountain Harebell
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Narrow Leaved Paintbrush
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Dusky Beardtongue
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Elephantella
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American Bistort
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Yarrow
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Yellow: Snow Buttercup
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Yellow Saxifrage
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Alpine Avens
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Tufted Phlox
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Moss Campion
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Alpine Sandwort
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Tansy Aster
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Mountain Blue Bells
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Western Yellow Paintbrush
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Alpine Avens
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King’s Crown
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Burgundy: King’s Crown    Blue: Mountain Blue Bells
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Alpine Avens or Snow Buttercups
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Elephantella
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Shrubby Cinquefoil
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Wild Geranium
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Thistle
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 Yellow Evening Primrose
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Nodding Onion
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Western Wallflower
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Blue Leaf Cinquefoil
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Large Yellow: Galardia   Background Yellow: Sulphur Flower
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Yellow: Shrubby Cinquefoil   White: Smooth White Aster
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Silvery Lupine
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July is the perfect time of year to visit the Rocky Mountain National Park.  The flowers cover the landscape, dot the fields and tundras with splashes of color.  The amazing thing about many of the flowers we saw is that many of them are not located in Tennessee, so this trip was a treasure.

 

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