PEEC What's Blooming Now?

The beginning flower identifier is usually overwhelmed by the variety and number of species. Most flower identification books show far more species than bloom locally. Happily, the most common flowers are not too many for the interested person to master. To help with this, PEEC has inaugurated this Flower Guide to what's blooming NOW! As the season progresses some will stop blooming while others will start.

By mid-summer, there are more than 20 plants at this web page, and again you might feel you're going into overload. What to do? Perhaps the best way is to visit this site once a week. Each time you will find a few new ones, but you will already be familiar with the older ones. By mid-summer most of the photos will be old friends, and you will be able to learn the new ones without too much effort.

Books
To aid in identifying some of our common plants, PEEC has published some little booklets: The 12 LIttle Composites of Summer, Erigerons, etc. So visit this site, drop by PEEC, and enjoy our splendid native wildflowers. The PEEC gift shop also sells a wonderful sketchbook of plants from all over the state, "Flowering Plants of New Mexico" by Robert DeWitt Ivey. This book has far more species than grow around here, but as you visit this site and learn our local ones, you can note them in Ivey's book. All the sketches are in black & white, so each time you find a plant you can color it in making the ones you learned easy to find. Remember what people say over and over again: "Until I learned their names, they weren't there!"

Identification help
There will always be the plant you find that isn't here. For those, take a picture and e-mail it to PEEC for identification. Or call the center and find out when one of the herbarium volunteers will be available; we are happy to help with identification.

About this page
Photos on this page appear automatically during their typical bloom dates, based on past years. They are displayed alphabetically by Latin name. If you notice any significant errors in what flowers are shown (or not shown), please contact us. To view more photos of the flowers from around the Pajarito Plateau, view PEEC's flowers and plants set on Flickr.

Flowering Plants

	Rock Jasmine (Androsace septentrionalis)
	Red Columbine (Aquilegia desertorum)
	Beaked milkvetch (Astragallus lentiginosus)
	Chocolate Flower (Berlandiera lyrata) Named for the scent of the flower.
	Fendler's Rockcress (Boechera fendleri)
	Paintbrush (Castijella integra)
	Chickweed or Mouse Ear (Cerastium arvense)
	Sand Aster (Chaetopappa ericoides)
	Golden Smoke (Corydalis aurea)
	James' Hiddenflower (Cryptantha jamesii)
	Tracy's Fleabane (Erigeron tracyi) Blooms nearly year-round. Has runners during summer and fall.
	Early Fleabane (Erigeron vetensis)
	Crane's Bill or Filaree (Erodium cicutarium) Common weed, blooms nearly all year round.
	Wallflower (Erysimium capitatum)
	Dakota Verbena or Pink Verbena (Glandularia bipinattifida)
	Sheepbur or Stickseed (Lappula occidentalis)
	Blue Flax (Linus lewisii)
	Fringed Puccoon (Lithospermum incisum)
	Yellow Puccoon (Lithospermum multiflorum)
	Creeping Oregon Grape (Mahonia repens)
	False Solomon's Seal (Maianthemum racemosum)
	Bluebells (Mertensia fusiformis) Also known as Chuska Chimingbells.
	Tufted Evening Primrose (Oenothera caespitosa)
	Yellow Prickly Pear (Opuntia polyacantha)
	Mountain Lover (Pachystima myrsinites)
	New Mexican Groundsel (Packera neomexicana)
	James's Penstemon (Penstemon jamesii) Fairly common around White Rock.
	One-sided Penstemon (Penstemon secundiflorus)
	Mountain Parsley (Pseudocymopteris montanus)
	Pasqueflower in seed (Pulsatilla patens)
	Plain Buttercup (Ranunculus inamoenus)
	Los Alamos Buttercup (Ranunculus ranunculinus) Common on north-facing canyon slopes.
	Wooton's Senecio (Senecio wootonii)
	Perky Sue (Tetraneuris argentea)
	Golden Pea (Thermopsis rhombifolia var. montana)
	Salsify or Oyster Plant (Trogopogon dubius)
	Valerian (Valerian arizonica)
	Blue Violet (Viola adnunca)
	White Violet (Viola canadensis)
	Banana Yucca (Yucca baccata)
	Narrowleaf Yucca (Yucca baileyi)

Flowering Shrubs

	Baneberry (Actaea rubra) In bloom.
	Fendler's Barberry (Berberis fendleri)
	Buckbrush (Ceanothus fendleri)
	Red Osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea)
	Cliff Fendler-bush (Fendlera rupicola) Fendlerbush in bloom is one of the glories of Spring in our area. Hurry, the flowers only last about two weeks. There is some located near the platform at White Rock Overlook. Photos taken in White Rock Canyon
	Ninebark (Physocarpus monogynus)
	Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana)
	Wax Currant (Ribes cereum) var. pediculare
	Beb Willow (Salix Bebbiana) Los Alamos Canyon
	Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) Shrub above 8,000 ft.