Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Prairie Smoke
Geum triflorum
Rose family (Rosaceae)

There is no mistaking this plant. Finely cut parsley-like leaves are surmounted by almost leafless red flower stems from which droop pink flowers that seem to be a between a flower, an insect, and a science fiction character. (See Artemisia scopulorum for another alien-looking plant.) Geum triflorum seeds are borne on feathery plumes (the mature ) and in areas where this wildflower is abundant, the wispy pink plants in seed appear as a low-lying fog or smoke -- hence "Prairie Smoke." The plant's leaves persist through the winter and are one of the first leaves to green up in the spring. Linnaeus named this in 1753. "Geum" is a name of ancient Greek origin.


©2014 Adam Schneider, Steve Sullivan

Description

, 6-24" tall, with bell-shaped, nodding flowers with pink green that hide light yellow or rosy petals within. curve outward after fertilization, displaying long feathery . Commonly 3 flowers per stem. Leaves are hairy, fern-like (irregularly divided), and mostly . Flowing stems red, soft hairy with pair of small leaves mid-stem.

Field Marks

Nodding, bell-shaped pink flowers developing long plumes on seeds; overall plant pink.

© Al Schneider

style -- This is a long and thread-like structure that connects the stigma with the ovary. A flower may have a single style, or several of them.

A perennial plant lives and blooms for many years.

A herb is a plant whose stems die back to the ground in the winter.

cross -- To make something interbreed. The act of hybridization.

Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom.

Bracts are modified leaves associated with a flower.

basal -- at the base, situated or attached at the base.

pinnate -- A compound leaf with two rows of leaflets.

In an opposite leaf arrangement the leaves come in pairs with one leaf on each side of a stem.

genus -- A subdivision of a botanical Family in which all members have a significant number of similar characteristics.