Tahoe Rim Trail. Tim Hauserman
or marshy areas, the tiger lily can grow 4 to 6 feet tall and is a wonderful visual treat with bright orange flowers speckled with brown.
Dry and Sunny Areas
Checkermallow Along with mules ears, this is perhaps the commonest flower in dry, volcanic areas. It is found at lake level and up to more than 9000 feet and is a low-lying flower with small pinkish-purple cups threaded by white veins.
Deep Forest Pinedrops The pinedrop is a saprophyte, which means that the plant obtains its nutrients from decaying vegetation in the ground rather than through photosynthesis. Pinedrops grow to 4 feet tall and have orange-red to reddish-brown stalks with numerous little curlicues coming off the sides of each narrow stalk. After they die they often remain standing for years, turning darker as years go by.
Douglas or Sierra Wallflower This bright-yellow flowered plant is common in dry areas and on rocky slopes. A member of the mustard family, it has a big cluster of little yellow petals forming a ball atop a straight green stem. It reaches a height of 1 to 3 feet.
Fireweed Fireweed grows in profusion along old road cuts and areas that were recently burned, disturbed, or where most of the plant cover has been removed. It seems to be most prolific after drier-than-normal winters. The plants are 3 to 4 feet high and covered with bright pink flowers.
Horsemint Horsemint is found in abundance in dry meadows and on rocky flats (Tahoe Meadows is one example). It is identifiable by its purple corn-cone group of flowers situated on top of a green stem with many green leaves. It is related to pennyroyal.
Mariposa Lily The beautiful round white flowers of the Mariposa lily have a purple to black center and a delicate appearance. Three cream-white petals form a small bowl. This plant is usually shorter than 6 inches and prefers dry or sandy soil on sunny open slopes.
Mariposa lilies
Mountain Pennyroyal or Coyote Mint This common flower grows in open forests and along volcanic slopes. A member of the mint family, pennyroyal has white or pink flower clusters atop upright stalks. It provides a strong mint smell as you walk by.
Mules Ears In areas with open, south-facing slopes, and particularly with volcanic soils, the mules ears are often the dominant flower species. They can cover acres of land with very few other plants in view. When you see a field of mules ears, you will also smell them as they have a strong odor. Big yellow sunflowers and large leaves that resemble the ears of a mule lend the plant its name. In the fall, the leaves dry up and turn brown, and make a rustling noise in the wind.
Prettyface These relatively common flowers grow close to the ground and have 6 light yellow petals at the end of each flower stem. Each petal has a small dark purple line extending toward its tip. Large groups of “pretty faces” can be found looking at you from dry soil.
Scarlet Gilia The bright red-orange beauty of scarlet gilia is startling to behold when it appears in the dry sandy forest and on open slopes. It can get up to 3 feet tall and has many bright trumpet-shaped flowers.
Snowplant
Snowplant Snowplants are also saprophytes and do not require sunlight to grow; they appear near trees or in dense forest areas. They are long and cylindrical (from 6 inches to 1 foot high) and a bright red color. Snowplant shoots straight out of the ground like a huge asparagus stalk, adding a splash of red color to the shade of the forest. They get their name because they pop up just after the snow melts.
Mixed Wet or Dry Areas
Asters and Daisies There are several species of these sunflowers that have pale purple petals circling a disk of yellow or gold. The western aster and wandering daisy are both quite common in the Tahoe area. Both plants grow up to 2 feet tall, although they are usually shorter, and occur up to 9000 feet. They prefer moist over dry settings.
Asters
Explorer’s Gentian This late-season bloomer has deep blue or purple tubular-shaped flowers. Light dots speckle the inside of the petals. Found in moist or rocky terrain, gentian provides a bit of bright color when many summertime flowers have come and gone.
Lupine One of the Tahoe region’s most common flowers, lupine is found in a number of different varieties. The common feature is that the leaves, no matter how small or big, are palmately shaped, which means they form groups like a hand. In the Sierra most lupines show off deep purple flowers. Tall large leaf lupines are found in abundance in wet areas, such as between Meiss Meadows and Showers Lake. Other large lupines include Torrey’s and Tahoe lupine. Brewers lupine is a high-altitude low-lying lupine with tiny leaves and dark purple flowers.
Paintbrush The orange Red Applegate’s paintbrush and the giant red paintbrush are the two species most commonly seen in the Tahoe area. Both have flowers that look like the brush end of a bright orange and red paintbrush. Often they are called Indian paintbrush. These and other species can be found on dry slopes to wet meadows, up to 9000 feet.
Paintbrush
Shrubs and Bushes
Buckthorn, Snowbush, or Mountain Whitethorn This plant with many names grows along disturbed areas, such as trails, and has lots of narrow white branches with spiny, thorny tips; when flattened by the snow, these branches lay down over the trail. I call it “mountain bikers’ menace” because its thorns can puncture tires. Whitethorn is about 3 to 4 feet tall and spreads out over 5 to 10 feet. It has small ovate-shaped whitish or green leaves. Often the plants are so thick that it is difficult to determine where one plant ends and another begins.
Chinquapin This common plant was named after a condominium project north of Tahoe City (or was it the other way around?). Chinquapin is a bushy shrub related to oaks that inhabits dry slopes and rocky ridges and frequently grows near manzanita bushes. The narrow leaves of this 2- to 4-foot-tall plant are up to 3 inches long, yellow-green on the top, and yellow-brown underneath. Chinquapin produces yellow-green seedpods in spring.
Huckleberry Oak One of the most common plants in this area, huckleberry oak typically gets up to about 3 feet high and grows on dry south-facing slopes. It has small leathery ovate leaves of medium to dark green. At the end of the narrow stalks you may see a light green acorn.
Manzanita While there are five species of manzanita in the Sierra, only two are commonly seen in the Tahoe area. Greenleaf manzanita is widespread in dryer areas over a wide elevation range. Its smooth bark is dark red or reddish-brown with shiny, bright green leaves, and it grows to about 3 to 5 feet tall. Manzanita has lots of rigid, crooked thick branches. In the spring they put out tiny pink flowers that supposedly look like little apples (manzanita is Spanish for “little apple”). Pinemat manzanita, with smaller leaves and stalks, is a smaller plant that grows to about a foot tall; it likes to form a carpet along the ground or over the top of granite rocks. Pinemat manzanita usually grows at a higher altitude than its greenleaf cousin. It is especially common between South Camp Peak and Kingsbury Grade.
Red Mountain Heather This dwarfish bush has dark green coniferlike needles and clusters of small bright pink or red flowers on the top of short stalks. It grows at high elevations throughout the Tahoe area, along some lakeshores, and in the Desolation Wilderness. This fragile plant is a thick ground cover running alongside the trail—take care not to step on it.
Squaw Carpet or Mahala Mat Thick patches of this plant as much as 10 to 20 feet across are made up of hollylike leaves carpeting the ground. In the spring, clusters of small blue to violet flowers grow among the sharp-edged leaves.
Thimbleberry They may not keep you from starving in the woods, but thimbleberries are edible and quite tasty when they ripen in late August and September. They are in the same family as blackberries and raspberries, and you will not be surprised to