Perennial

Form:               Bunch grass; densely tufted and erect

Height:              1 to 2 ½ feet

Form:               Bunch grass, in small tufts usually 6 inches across

Height:              Up to 1 foot

Form:               Bunch grass; densely tufted; the flowering stalk resembles Sandberg bluegrass

Height:              7 to12 inches

Form:               Bunch grass; species of wild rye

Height:              6 to 18 inches

Form:               Bunch grass in dense tufts.

Height:              2 to 3 feet.

Meadow death camas has a single stem, eight to twenty inches tall, with long four to twelve inch grass-like leaves at its base. At first the flowers form a rather dense pyramidal cluster. Later the cluster becomes more elongate and the individual flowers more widely spaced. The flowers can be white, cream-colored, or pale yellow.

The brodiaea or wild hyacinth has a cluster of pale to dark blue, tubular flowers with six wavy lobes or “petals” atop a single spindly stem. These stems can grow twelve to eighteen inches tall from a bulb, with one or two grass-like leaves nearly as long as the stem.

Western groundsel is a fairly tall plant (eight to twenty-eight inches) with a single upright stem and large, smooth-edged leaves. Although daisy-like, groundsels appear flat-topped with several to numerous small, yellow heads borne near the tips of equal-height branches.

Showy and widespread throughout the Columbia Basin, the sagebrush buttercup is one of spring’s first arrivals, often blooming in February.

Columbia goldenweed is one of the last blooming wildflowers in our foothills, followed only by snow buckwheat, rabbitbrush, and tall buckwheat.