Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountains

by George W. Scotter
Photography by Halle Flygare
Published by Whitecap Books, 2007; 255 pages; $29.95 US/CAN

I grew up in the 1940s and 50s on a horse and cattle ranch in a narrow band of foothills between the prairie and the Rocky Mountains adjacent to Waterton Lakes National Park in southwest Alberta. I was blessed by parents who were keen naturalists, with an interest and knowledge of the myriad of native wildflowers and other plants growing in abundance in my “backyard”. Visual identification of flowers gracing the meadows, forests, hillsides, mountain slopes and alpine habitats was a favourite pastime for our family.

What a treat it would have been then to have in hand the updated volume, “Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountains” by George W. Scotter and Halle Flygare! The goal of the authors was to produce a book which laypeople would find easy to use in their efforts to identify wildflowers encountered during visits to the Rocky Mountains. In this they have admirably succeeded.

Dr. Scotter, a trained botanist, was a well published Research Scientist and Manager with the Canadian Wildlife Service for more than 30 years. He was often a key person on teams evaluating sites nominated for establishment as new National Parks, particularly in northern Canada. It is no surprise then that the text of Wildflowers is well written and provides the salient information necessary for identifying wildflowers most likely to be seen by Rocky Mountain visitors and residents alike.

As a former professional nature photographer, I am very impressed with Halle Flygare’s ability to capture the “essence” of his subjects. I know from experience that it is not easy to show the distinguishing characteristics of a flowering plant in a photograph. However, perhaps no other single factor contributes more to making this book user-friendly for amateur botanists. The photos are excellent.

The authors further assist the user by arranging the wildflowers into six colour groups which makes for a handy way to cut to the chase in identifying them. For those who want more to go on, the differences in physical characteristics between species are clearly delineated in the introduction, species descriptions, glossary and figures.

The 1986 edition of Wildflowers of the Canadian Rockies by the same authors covered only the Rockies north of the 49th parallel. The new updated edition is an ambitious expansion to include flowers of the Rocky Mountains south of the international boundary as well. It was a challenging exercise because the geology and topography of the United States portion of the Rockies is quite different from that found in Canada. In the US the mountain ranges are often widely separated by plains and scrub. Nonetheless, the authors identified more than 300 plant species that are found in the Rocky Mountains in both Canada and the United States, and another 40 that occur in the US only. The remaining species shown in the book do not occur south of the international boundary.

This summer and fall I brought Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountains to my old haunts in the mountains of southwest Alberta. Thanks to past recollections, and aided by the book, I soon identified many old friends from the plant world during hikes into the Rockies. This is a very useful book for both the layperson and professional interested in Rocky Mountain wildflowers.

Richard H. Russell is a retired wildlife biologist and Nature Canada supporter.