From seed in 2010, these little beauties are putting up flower stalks this year!
Two different plants of Lupinus lepidus var. utahensis, the second a little more advanced... also a tighter plant in slightly leaner conditions.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this one. It has staying power, beautiful pink to slightly purple large flowers, and every part of the plant seems to be intensely furry, including the wonderful pods. My picture of the pods is unfortunately a slide but am showing a photo of it in bloom. It has never seeded itself here and does not make viable seed pods every year. I tried sowing the seeds in the garden and got nothing, but pot culture results in seedlings. It seems to like lime, sun and wind and grows here in screes, crevice garden, and sand bed.
Trifolium andersonii grows along the eastern Sierras Nevada Range of California and Nevada entering south central Oregon in the Steens Mountains then eastward into the Owyhee Plateau of Idahoe.
Trifolium andersonii has thee subspecies. Trifolium andersonii ssp. andersonii the most wide spreed across the whole range. Trifolium andersonii ssp. beatleyae only found in the CA & NV portions of the range. Trifolium andersonii ssp. monoense found in the southern Sierra Nevada Range.
I grow two of the subspecies in my garden, ssp. andersonii and ssp. beatleyae.
The choicest milkvetch in the immediate Denver area is this tiny cushion plant: pretty much restricted to the foothill rock outcrops near Denver up to central Wyoming. It can make huge cushions, like vegetable sheep, in parts of it range. It is one of a half dozen "Orophaca": this has been used as a sectional name and also an attempted generic. They are the densest, most wonderful cushion plants in the genus--centered in Wyoming and northern Colorado. Astragalus gilviflorus shown in the other post is in this group (the least cushiony of all).
Hmm, I suppose that that common name, "inflated oxytrope", like bladderpod, is not likely to hold much appeal for the gardening public! Oh well.
When I lived in the Seattle Washington area, it was a mere 2 hour drive to get up into the dry Wenatchee Mts (a spur off the Cascades), where there was lots of Lewisia tweedyi in some strong yellow and peachy-yellow shades (the guys at Grand Ridge Nursery found forms that were yellow strongly tinged red). From there we'd move along to another area, and my wife and I would go "rediviva" spotting, along with Fritillaria pudica, Sisyrinchium douglasii, eriogonums and penstemons...
Another plant that has flown the coop! For years this graced a raised bed and produced a ton of seed (its progeny are now thriving in OTHER people's gardens) and no matter what I do I can't seem to get this to grow again here or anywhere else in my garden. For five or six years it would bloom magnificently through spring, and in a few days in June shoot hundreds of seed all over the place. Would a single one of these have germinated nearby and perpetuated the show? No way.
Over the decades I'm sure I have grown several dozen milkvetches in my various gardens. As gorgeous as many of the American species are, I have noticed that the Eurasian ones are more apt to stick around. This Turkish species came to me from Jim and Jenny Archibald over 20 years ago. I can't remember if it is Astragalus alyssoides or A. alyssifolia (it was one of the two)...It certainly doesn't look like any alyssum I grow! My original plants grew for almost a decade at my last home. I grew some from seed when I moved to Quince and they are still with me ten years later.
Our native Oxytropis splendens is certainly well-named! The dense covering of long silky hairs makes the entire plant look as though it's been dipped in silver. The scapes are delightfully furry (forgive my uncharacteristic gushing but they are as cute as baby animals!) and then as the flowers emerge, they are punctuated by the perfect compliment of bright pink-purple petals that dry to blue.