On Buttercups and Baby Bison
Each spring in Yellowstone snowmelt cascades from the highlands and newly exposed earth soaks in the lengthening daylight. It’s this time of year a quiet magic unfolds across our mountainous, high-desert landscape. Dogged tufts of green grass push through dormant yellow undergrowth. This greenery entices ungulates higher and higher onto hills, valleys, and plateaus, following a “wave” of new growth moving upward. Then, in a slowly evolving wash of rainbow color, wildflowers follow closely behind speckling dashes of flair throughout the earth-toned backdrop. Sagebrush buttercups cluster loosely in open spaces, their golden petals bowllike; Wyoming kittentails stand erect with their numerous lavender flowers bunched at their outer edges; and the pristine-white petals of Rocky Mountain phlox pop in contrast to the greens, yellows, blues, and other colors in their surroundings. It’s here, in this fecund landscape, we see the emergence…
May 15, 2023