Flora

Spring Beauty, wildflower – what to look for

6 years ago
by admin

Taxonomy

  • Family: Montiaceae
  • 14 genera of ~230 species
  • Claytonia genus = 25 native species

Species Habitat

Spring Beauty is one of the earliest blooming wildflowers in the Pacific Northwest (see Mathews 2003). Grows in meadows, woods, shrub patches from montane to alpine in elevation.
Upland habitat of Spring Beauty (Clayonia lanceolata)

Spring Beauty (Clayonia lanceolata) grows in seasonally moist soil in a variety of situations: woods, meadows, grasslands, thickets from montane to alpine elevations (Lesica 2012). The photo above is from Pattee Canyon Recreation Area; can you see this wildflower on the southeast facing upland slope? Here’s what it looks like at ground level (below).

Spring Beauty, an early blooming wildflower on the landscape
White flowers of Spring Beauty replacing the receding snow color on the landscape
Spring Beauty flower in moist soil. By late July, August the greenery of this plant has withered and the nutrients have retreated to the bulb.
Brilliant white blossoms with pink, yellow and green accents.

Biology

Mathews (2003) has a short detailed account of the biology of this plant. In a nutshell, Spring Beauty grows quickly from a bulb. It will grow, flower, set seed and store starches for next year in a maximum of four weeks! The coolest fact from Mathews account: the plant utilizes growth heat from the stored starches to facilitate photosynthesis in cold temperatures.

Spring Beauty (Claytonia lanceolata), a perennial wildflower, grows quickly from starch reserves of a corm.
Spring Beauty is a wildflower that is adapted to the ephemeral soil moisture of spring.

Wildflower Identification

At low elevations few plants are in flower during early April. Bulbous Woodland-star has a pinkish white flower, but has red stems, star shaped flowers and a different leave shape. Spring Beauty has (Lesica 2012):

  • lance shaped stem leaves with three parallel lines,
  • leaves are somewhat succulent and 1-3 inches long
  • a height up to 10 inches
  • five notched white flower petals streaked with pink
  • pink colored stamens
The wildflower, Spring Beauty (Claytonia lanceolata), blooms very early in spring. It can do this because of starch reserves in bulb. Because of this energy source the plant can grow, bloom and set seed all in a matter of a few weeks. Read Daniel Mathews (2003) for finer details.
Muted colors of the flower base are as beautiful as the open blossom.

Distribution

This species is found throughout the Rocky Mountains of the American West.

Claytonia virginica also named Spring Beauty is the eastern equivalent commonly found in lands east of the Mississippi River. If you want information for this related species, click on the following links for the states of Illinois , Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia.

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