Yellow Umbrellaplant in Grasslands National Park

Yellow Umbrellaplant beginning to flower ©SB

The first time I saw a Yellow Umbrellaplant, I was baffled. Its frilly yellow flower clusters had drooped to become coral tubes, which looked like nothing at all in my flower guides.

And yet, these orange-red flowers were fairly common on hillsides in the West Block of Grasslands National Park...

But what were they?

It took a while to decipher the secret of my mystery flowers, with a few dead ends and wrong guesses along the way.

But finally, I realized that this was the Yellow Umbrellaplant, a woody perennial that grows on eroded banks and Prairie badlands.

I remembered that story this year when I visited Grasslands National Park again, and noticed the Yellow Umbrellaplant (Eriogonum flavum) in several stages of flowering. A search of my photo files found more.

These furry dry-land Prairie Wildflowers are at first firm fists of ant-sized yellow-green buds. These open to create umbel-like clusters of frothy pink-tinged yellow flowers, which in turn droop and darken to become very beautiful — and to my eyes, very different but equally tiny — flowers as they age.

Yellow Umbrellaplant flowers, a little further along. ©SB

Yellow Umbrellaplant: frilly yellow flowers open, a reddish tinge begins
(Note bugs for scale) ©SB

Yellow Umbrellaplant as the flowers begin to age, droop and darken ©SB

Yellow Umbrellaplant in in its mystery coral tube phase -
very little yellow or familiar flower shape remain ©SB

(For a related prairie wildflower, see the Branched Umbrellaplant.)

Prairie Wildflower: Yellow Umbrellaplant  (Eriogonum flavum) 

Location:  Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, Canada, and buttes near Val Marie, Saskatchewan.  

Photo Dates: 1 & 2: June 25, 2013; 3 & 4: June 24, 2015; 5: July 27, 2011.  

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