Showy roadside plants peaking
For many Yukoners, the sight of brilliant bands of colour lining the highway is a reassuring sign of summer. Mid-June is the peak for many roadside flowers, a time when days are the longest and Yukon highways are busy with visitor traffic.
"Tourists ask all kinds of questions about roadside vegetation, particularly about the showy plants," says botanist Bruce Bennett. "People who are interested in flowers find our roadside flowers quite beautiful. There are few places in the world where you see so much, mainly because there are no overpasses, lawns or extensive paving. It can be a bit overwhelming for some visitors!"
"Many of these plants are native species, and several are rare outside the Yukon. So though we get used to seeing them, our roadside flora are quite unique and something to be proud of," he adds.
Most roadside plants share a common trait -- they thrive in disturbed soil. The gravelly or sandy materials used for road beds present ideal habitat for plants that colonize recently disturbed areas.
In the past, the Yukon government has seeded along newly constructed roads to encourage re-vegetation. But non-native plants in the seed mixes usually choke out native species, and Bennett says that the highways department is now more open to leaving areas to regenerate naturally.
"The new Champagne cut-off is growing back beautifully. There's lots of Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium pulcherrimum), and the Golden Corydalis (Corydalis aurea) is coming in quite thickly," says Bennett. "Within a week or so we'll start to see Phacelia franklinii -- it's a purple biennial in the borage family that often grows a foot or two tall."
"It's a native endemic species of weedy habits and a great colonizer of disturbed sites," he adds.
Among roadside plants, species of the Pea family are the most splendid. The Yukon is rich in oxytropes, hedysarum and lupines, with several colour varieties occurring throughout the territory. By mid-June, thick pink swaths of Wild Sweet Pea (Hedysarum boreale) and Bear Root (Hedysarum alpinum) are blooming along many Yukon highways.
"Bears feast on the alpinum, but they avoid the boreale because it's poisonous. The one that isn't edible tends to be the showy roadside species, so it makes great natural roadside seeding because it's a nitrogen fixer and doesn't attract wildlife," says Bennett.
Oxytropes are also favoured food for bears, and Bennett says this is a main reason why bears come to the sides of roads. "Oxytropis splendens -- or Showy Crazyweed -- is bluey-pink with woolly leaves. There's yellow, purple, and whitish ones too. Like hedysarum, the oxytropes are excellent nitrogen fixers."
Lupines occur throughout western Canada, and Bennett finds that people think it's just one species. The Nootka Lupine grows in the Yukon's southern mountain passes, and the Arctic Lupine is widely seen in the Yukon. A third species is considered rare globally, but is relatively common around Whitehorse.
"Lupinus kuschei is silvery, thick, small and shriveled, and the flowers kind of creep along the ground," says Bennett. "It's easiest to see at the Carcross Dunes, and in sandy spots like around the Whitehorse airport and near Champagne."
Bennett lists several other species people are likely to spot along southern Yukon highways this month.
"The Mastodon flower is a bright yellow, woolly plant that can sometimes grow four or five feet tall. They like marshy areas and ditches, like the Pickhandle Lake area toward Beaver Creek."
"The boat launch near the end of Fish Lake near Whitehorse is often congested with it," he adds.
"The bright purple wild snapdragon -- the Yukon Penstemon -- grows on south facing slopes, and it's just starting to flower all around Whitehorse and up to Dawson. Though it's rare in B.C. and Alaska, it's very common here."
Bennett also mentions a local species of a very common flower that is often dismissed as a weed.
"Ceratophorum is our native species of Dandelion, commonly called the Horn Dandelion. I can often tell the difference because the flower is much yellower than the introduced officinale Dandelion, but the best way to identify it is by its 'horn' appendage," says Bennett.
"The bract -- or fringe -- at the base of the flower doesn't curl down. And on tips of all the bracts is something lumpy that looks like a horn."
Bennett also notes that a popular Yukon flower identification handbook, Wildflowers of the Yukon, Alaska and Northwestern Canada by John Trelawny, is to be reissued early this summer. The book will include updated images and revised and more accurate information.
- The Yukon Wildlife Viewing Program has two plant-related walks scheduled in the next month. June 21 is a hike up Montana Mountain, and they're planning a walk to the Takhini salt flats on July 10. For more information call (867) 667-5331.
