Alpine Flowers of the Olympic Mountains

Item #: 20529
Author: Douglas Houck
ISBN: 9780985371821
$8.95
Alpine Flowers of the Olympic Mountains
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The Olympic Mountains provide world class scenery, unusual geography and a unique set of beautiful wildflowers, including species found nowhere else in the world (endemics).

It is a land of superlatives where annual rainfall ranges in the west at 150 inches and just 40 miles away to the NE drops to less than 17 inches. Add to this the unusual geography of an uplifted semicircular series of submarine basalt ridges that are surrounded on three sides by marine waters. All these factors result in the unique alpine flowers of the Olympic Mountains.

While the west Olympics have tall, lush, low-elevation subalpine meadows of lupine, paintbrush, fleabane, clasping arnica, false hellebore, valerian, etc., the higher north and east alpine ridges have a much different set of flowers reflective of the reduced rainfall and poor soils.

Three-fourths of the flowers in this guide grow at high elevations (>5,500 ft.) under relatively dry conditions in medium-thin to no soils and complete their flowering in 7-10 days. These are small, hardy flowers, some of which have survived here for millions of years.

Finally, there is no peak bloom time in the Olympics. New species begin blooming throughout the summer. Timing starts with snow melt-out which begins first in the east, then north and finally the west Olympics.
Features: Booklet. 2014. 22 pp. Many color photos, 120 wildflowers with GPS coordinates. 6 x 9 in.