As spring awakens, we are beginning to get our first glimpses of color out on the trails and in the mountain meadows! A glorious return to the vibrant and diverse beauty that is the wildflower bloom in the Rocky Mountains. It takes a very hardy flower to be the first in these parts, as we typically have a few more desperate gasps of winter bringing cold and snow, but every year our pasque flowers seem to take the prize at this elevation.

Each spring around the beginning of April their tiny, fuzzy heads begin to creep out of the soil and rocks to display their brilliant pre-bloom purple/blue buds, a stark contrast to the remaining browns of winters decay and whites of the final snows. While blooms can last well past April, they seem to “shine” the brightest at the earliest onset, likely due to our own happiness at the return of any color to the landscape.

It should be noted to foragers of natural remedies that pasque is fairly toxic as a fresh plant, as it contains an oil that can cause reactions both topically as well as gastrointestinally. It is understood that up to 30 consumed flowers of some species can be lethal. That said, once dried the plant has been used in native medicine for a number of reasons, depending on the part of the plant used.

As the days grow longer and warmer, it’s time to get out and celebrate, taking in the sights and smells of the beginnings of the new life in another new year, and the pasque is out there to welcome you into the new season of abundance and growth!

Information for this article came from the US Forest Service. If you would like to learn more go to this website https:// www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-theweek/ pulsatilla_ patens_ multifida.shtml.

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