Yesterday we took a hike at the river and this time we found a beautiful new-to-us wildflower.
The color was so striking and so dazzling that I had to take some photos and then come home and try to identify it with my field guide.
Orange Bush Monkeyflower
Mimulus aurantiacus
Figwort Family, blooms March-August, great source of nectar for hummingbirds.
This is the third kind of monkeyflower we have identified this year!
The river was so green and lovely as we hiked along the trail. There were a few people floating down in tubes, enjoying the the cold water and the hot sun.
If you are interested, I have been updating my Yosemite Wildflower blog this week and I would love for you to pop over there and check it out. Here is the link:
Yosemite Wildflowers
All of the photos are from our trips last summer to Yosemite. I am aiming to finish all of the photos I have stored up before we take our next trip in July. I still have quite a few to go, but I am making headway.
We went to Stinson Beach last week and a friend of mine introduced me to the sticky monkey flower. How could I have never noticed them before?!
Your monkey flowers are interesting, too, the way the petals are joined….
How big are they?
The monkey flowers that we saw in this post were rather large. The flowers themselves were about 3 inches across I would estimate.
They were striking!
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
I thought they looked pretty big. The flowers I saw were maybe an inch.
Can you tell me a good book to teach ME how to identify flowers? I have a Peterson’s guide and an Audubon guide, but I have the hardest time identifying flowers and I’d really like to learn.
Rhonda
prayingmother at me dot com
Rhonda,
My best advice is to use your local flower field guide and *read* it from cover to cover and look at all the photos. I have the Audubon one worn out from paging through it. Once I took the time to really learn how it is set up, by color and shape, I am getting much faster at identifying flowers.
Someone suggested this book to me and I have it on my wishlist:
http://www.amazon.com/Botany-Day-Patterns-Method-Identification/dp/1892784157/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245086372&sr=8-1
It teaches you the flower families and makes it easier to narrow down by flower type, leaf type, and where the flower is growing.
Let me know if you get the book and it helps you.
Thanks for the comment,
Barb