Near Glacier National Park

A big post from Big Sky Country.  We took 212 through the Northern Cheyenne and Crow Indian Reservations in Southeast Montana.  We only took time for a brief stop at the Little Bighorn Battlefield.  We happened upon it on the anniversary of the battle, without planning it that way, and it was crowded so we didn't stay long.  We suffered a flat tire shortly after and limped into Billings.  I was prepared for a long wait to get a new tire, but the tire shop worked like a pit crew and we were back on our way in just 20 minutes.  We thoroughly enjoyed the drive between Billings and Livingston.  We had a wonderful breakfast at Wheat Montana in Three Forks and got to Glacier late in the afternoon.  I kept noting fields of deep pink along the way. It turns out that it is sainfoin, Onobrychus viciifolia.  I never got a close up because the wind was blowing a steady 30 mph with gusts of 50mph or so.  I had to concentrate just to keep the car on the road. But it was lovely with the puffy clouds, blue sky, and mountains in the distance.

We stopped in Browning for gas and noted all the very friendly dogs that seem to populate the town and wander ceaselessly looking for handouts.  I chose to enter the park at a lesser known spot, near Two Medicine Lake.  I did not like the road prior to that.  I suffer from acrophobia, and what looked like a non-scary road, Montana Highway 49, turned out to be a little uncomfortable for me.  Forest didn't think it a big deal, but the roadway had slid slightly down the side of the mountain in a few places.  The roadside sign euphemism for this to warn travellers was "Rough Break", warning of the sudden and significant dip in the road surface.  It was a road well worth travelling. Rain was beginning to fall in the distance and the scene was dramatic, and it was refreshingly cool, and the wind had subsided a bit. 

We stopped before the entrance station and looked around the dense lodgepole pine forest. It was green and lush and damp, in contrast to the dry forests and prairies we'd been travelling through.  The beargrass, Xerophyllum tenax, was in full bloom. 

I was lucky enough to find a black stemmed form, which I have never seen before.  Theoretically, it could be propagated, but beargrass is not often grown in gardens because of its rather exacting requirements, so this is a rarity that will have to be enjoyed where it grows naturally.  The leaves look very soft, but they are quite hard and wiry.  The leaves are available from florists for use in bouquets, and the natives used them to weave baskets.



Fragrant Spreading Dogbane Evening

More from my brother's place.  Near the sour cherry tree, down the steep slope toward the ravine in an impossibly dry and partly shaded slope, Apocynum androsaemifolium, spreading dogbane, blooms with consistency every year, even in this year's heat and drought. It's probably one of the most adaptable plants native to North America. It's native to every state except Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, and Hawaii. 

It's fragrance is permeating and pleasant, and seems all the stronger at the end of a hot, dry day. It's not cultivated much, and perhaps it's the plant's spreading nature that keeps it out of gardens. When we were collecting plants in 2010, this is one that we chose not to collect, entirely due to worries about how it might misbehave in the garden. 

Plants of this species in the Black Hills are more noticeable to me, and I think they might bear more flowers than most I have seen.  This species readily hybridizes with Apocynum cannabinum, Indian hemp.  Don't get excited; the species name of that one relates to its use in making rope, and it contains no THC.  The individual flowers are lovely and intricately flushed with pink.