Photo Friday - Forest Flowers

Last night we took a stroll through the forest and found so many beautiful flowers in bloom I just had to share it with you all. 


From wild orchids to chocolate lilies to delightful violets, I hope you enjoy this virtual plant walk. 

Chocolate Lilies - Fritillaria lanceolata 

Hooker's Fairy Bells - Prosartes hookeri

Saskatoon - Amelanchier alnifolia

Wild Strawberries - Fragaria spp.

Violet - Viola glabella

Fairyslippers - Calypso bulbosa

Fairyslippers - Calypso bulbosa

Gooseberry - Ribes lacustre

Baneberry - Actaea rubra

Arrowleaf Balsamroot - Balsamorhiza sagittata

Larkspur - Delphinium nuttallianum

Arnica - Arnica cordifolia

Photo Friday: Plants of the Yucatan

I was jumping up and down excited
to see aloe in bloom. I use this plant
extensively for myself and with clients for
cold sores to fertility to ulcers. This was the
first bloom I saw in real life!

In February I traveld to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico to spend some time with my dad who has lived there for the past six years. 


Since my valley is still locked into the winter months with plenty of snow and no green things I was pretty excited to see the jungle of the tropics! This photo Friday will be in at least two parts and I hope it gives you a glimpse of this beautiful world down south. 

Hibiscus was in bloom every where we went! It is called jamaica (with a soft j like "haa"). Hibiscus tea is served at practically every restaurant however they add what tastes like an equal amount of sugar to water.

After visiting my dad's home in Campeche we headed to Celestun,  a beach in the north of the Yucatan. It was beautiful! Our hotel, which was located right on the beach, was $30 a night. Here's my dad walking off into the sunset.

A reminder of toilet manners. 

This area is home to flamingos! I'd never seen one in real life before, much less hundreds at a time. These birds are busy eating shrimp from this river.

In flight. 

The Yucatan peninsula is all limestone. This creates these sinkholes, called cenotes which fill with beautiful clear clean water. The best swimming holes ever! This particular cenote was incredible. It was half salt water and it also had a lot of sulphur water. It's especially touted as a health benefit to swim here. Which I did.

I admit that I was a little hesitant to eat raw seafood, ceviche, in Mexico. I've heard enough horror stories. But the waiter said it was the house specialty, so I went for it. Absolutely delicious! And yes, that is octopus.

This beach was covered in shells. In some places the shells were at least a foot thick.

In the smaller towns this was a very common means of transportation - both bike and motorcycle.

Here's an orchid I found growing randomly in a hotel entrance. Beautiful!

Here's another cenote in the middle of a rather large city, Valladolid. We were there early in the morning. Later in the day it will be full of swimmers and people jumping in from the top!

Another common scene in the Yucatan.

This photo is just to brag. I did sit in one of those chairs for two glorious days. I read the book 1491 (I highly recommend it) and swam in the water several times a hour.
Tropical beaches are one of my favorite things on this earth. 

Photo Friday ~ Herbal Panoramas

Evening primrose growing alongside a
waterfall near Escalante, Utah

A few months ago I had this great idea to share my favorite photos every Friday. And it really was a great idea. The only problem is that I took it a little overboard (welcome to the story of my life). Originally I had thought I would post one or two photos of plants. Maybe a couple of sentences to go along with it. Super simple, but elegant and it would only take 15 minutes or so each week. 


But no, I couldn't stop there. I had to add more photos and more descriptions until my simple photo Friday turned into a couple hours of editing work for me. And in case you didn't already know, I have enough on my plate! 


So, there has been an absence of photo Fridays. But I still think it's a good idea as long as I can tame  my over achiever qualities. We'll see. 


To shake things up a bit I am not choosing a particular plant this week, but instead some herbal panoramas. Beautiful scenes I've been privileged to witness over the past couple of years. 


I'll be honest, my main motivation is that I have spring fever. I was editing video yesterday for my Plants in France series on HerbMentor.com and seeing the abundance of green growing things with birds chirping in the background just about did me in. Does summer really exist? Will it one day be summer again? I had to surround myself with more greenery. So here you have it. 

Wild rose growing outside of Escalante, Utah. My paternal family settled here over 100 years ago. 

Elder flowers near Escalante, Utah

Dandelion meadow in the French Alps. The cheese from the cows grazing these fields was amazing. 

Bistort in the French Alps

Yarrow meadow on Canyon Ridge in the Methow Valley

Nettle growing on Lake Geneva in Evian (think water) France

Spice market in Bonneville, France. The birth city of my handsome French husband. 

I was amazed that nettle grew everywhere in France. 

Linden growing outside of a medieval village in southern France. 

Outside of Jardin du centaure, a beautiful medicinal herb garden in central France. 

This is the entrance to their small shop. 

My husband and his uncle walking along a trail on a volcano in central France. The white flowered shrubs are elders. 

Douglas sunflower with the snowy north cascades in the background. 

Elephant's head in an alpine meadow. One of the most beautiful places I've seen, except for the fact I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes. I guess there are plusses to winter, no biting bugs. 

Lycium growing at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. 

Well, I still did more than I intended, but small steps right? I hope you enjoyed the scenery! 

Photo Friday - Orchids

Photo Friday - Where I share my love of photography and plants

Serapias vomeracea
Geneva Botanical Gardens

This week I've been writing the next episode of Learning Your Plants - a botany course for herbalists for HerbMentor.com. 

This episode is focused on the orchid family and so I was inspired to share some orchid photos this Friday. 

Most of us are most familiar with the orchids that are so lovingly cultivated in people's homes. There are over 100,000 cultivars of orchids! 


I adore orchids and the ones closest to my heart are the ones found in the wild. This is the largest plant family on the planet, yet there is something so magical about finding these spectacular plants. Perhaps due to the wet spring and early summer I found orchids this year that I had never seen before - some of them growing right outside my cabin! 


This first set of photos are of Lady's Slippers (Cypripedium montanum). These grow along our creek, about a five minute walk from our cabin. Each spring when these start to emerge from the ground I visit them daily to watch them unfold. 

Lady's Slippers were a favorite medicinal plant not too many decades ago. Over harvesting and habitat loss have put most species on the endangered list. I am working with these plants to encourage them to spread abundantly. 

This White Bog Orchid (Platanthera spp.) was growing on Mt. Hood. I had the honor of hiking through the area with Paul Bergner and his students a couple of years ago and we came alongside this beauty in a marshy open clearing. 

Coral root (Corallorhiza maculata) is not only an orchid but also a non-photosynthesizing plant that lives in relationship with mycelium. Michael Moore discusses using this plant medicinally, but I've only admired this creature for its beauty. This photo was taken in central Utah at high elevation. 

This is the orchid I found growing just a few steps outside my cabin. I am still wondering, was I just oblivious to this delicate plant growing so near by? Or did the abundant rains inspire its growth? This is the Alaska-Rein Orchid (Piperia unalaschensis). 

I believe this is Slender Bog Orchid (Platanthera stricta). It was growing in a sub-alpine bog not too far off Hwy 20 here in Washington state. We found it while taking a short hike on our way to the Northwest Herbal Fair in Mt. Vernon this year. The clearing also boasted elephant's head, gorgeous violets, veronica species and many more floral wonders. 

This Lady's Tresses (Spiranthes romazolfiana) was a delightful surprise growing around a lake just north of Mazama, Washington. Its common name refers to the flowers looking like a woman's braid. 

These next couple of photos are photos I took this spring at the Geneva Botanical Gardens. My husband's mother lives about 45 minutes from Geneva, so we took a day trip to see the gardens. We spent five hours wandering around this spectacular park and saw a small fraction of the plants there. 

The (free) gardens were very well maintained and organized in interesting sections. They had a medicinal herb area, plants that made oils, plants that were used for fibers, etc. Of course I loved the medicinal plants area where I saw lots of plants I'd never had the chance to see in life before. 

I also loved the area where plants were arranged in areas by continent. Rather than straight garden rows these areas had been manipulated to look like more natural environments. I was able to see lots of Chinese medicinals, plants from Africa and even plants I had never seen from north america. 

Across the street from the gardens was the United Nations building. While walking around the gardens we also had the pleasure of hearing a plethora of different languages. 

Here's another variety of Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium reginae) which grows on the east coast. 

This next orchid is one of the most abundant orchids on the west coast - apparently I had to go to Geneva to find it! 

Stream Orchid (Epipactis gigantea)

How about you? Do you adore orchids? Are there any orchids growing in your area?