1) Anemone, Aquilegia, Delphinium, and other Ranunculaceae

I've noticed over the years that this is usually misnamed in a lot of collections. Since it is the Avatar (so to speak) of the Rocky Mountain Chapter (we all know the real thing!) I thought it would be good to post this picture that really shows the distinguishing characteristics. It is widely distributed, but never common, right at treeline on the mountains visible from the Denver area: a range of maybe 150 miles: on a clear day I feel as though I could pick it out from my front door...

It isn't the smallest, showiest or rarest columbine. But it may be the cutest!

Delphinium geyeri is still very common around Denver, especially in the hogbacks just West of the city. There are incredible stands near Fort Collins and Boulder as well. For almost a month in June this blazes the most amazing blue color. It is a dryland plant that must grow in sparse prairie grasses, preferably on clay soils and have a relatively dryish summer to really do its thing. It can get 4' or more tall--so rock gardeners may think it's too big...but every rock garden should have a wild garden and meadow nearby!

This is just such a beautiful little plant that I felt it should open up the Aquilegia board. Grown from seed a while ago and at the moment I can't find much sign of it on this bed (apart from the label) so I hope that its not disappeared during the snow. Last year it was still there as seedlings but nothing flowering.

I try to get my hands on different Anemones for woodland. But I have never come across the North American species A. quinquefolia offered for sale, at least not in Europe. Is this a common wild plant "over there"? Or is it a little more like A. ranunculoides in Norway you find it "here and there".

The familiar "prairie crocus" or "pasque flower" is the harbinger of spring across the prairies, blooming more-or-less around that most unpredictable of holidays, Easter - depending on the timing of the snow melt, and in those increasingly rare places where the grasslands have not been too severely disturbed. They occur here up through the montane-to-lower alpine zone, blooming even into early July.
From along the Bow River in Calgary (#1-5), and lastly, in seed, from an alpine ridge in Kananaskis Prov. Park:

Very well. It may have come to me as P. slavica. Or one of a dozen other names. Time and again I grow a pasqueflower and it mysteriously morphs into P. vulgaris. There was a time that this species had spread so thickly through Denver Botanic Gardens' Rock Alpine Garden I actually had a mandate from my boss to pull them out. And I removed hundreds...

Regretfully, since there are really not many alpines that provide so much punch so early. I particuarly like the forms that open widely like this one.