Prairie Crocus: First Growth from Dry Grasses

Prairie Crocus. Wascana Trails, near Regina, SK  © SB

Prairie Crocuses are still blooming freely around Regina, Saskatchewan and even west into the foothills of Alberta, near Banff. Yesterday, I even heard of a spot near here with hundreds of huge clusters — so many that you'd have to walk carefully to avoid them! I would like to visit... 

I love these plants, whose buds push through the late winter ground before any of their leaves appear. Among the earliest blooming wildflowers on the Prairies, they are one of our first signs of spring, and striking for their soft, bright, blue-purplish-pink-white flowers. (Yes, all shades — it depends how open the flowers is, and the colour of the light around them.) 

Of course, Prairie Crocuses aren't really crocuses at all, but a kind of anemone. They are also called Pasque-flowers. But those are just details. What matters to me is the sight of these flowers bobbing in the wind on a cool, sunny day on the Prairies. Spring! 

The first buds on this cluster have died off - or been by frost,
but every day, new ones will open. © SB

I'm so amazed - each and every year - to see
fully formed flowers jutting out of the bare earth. © SB 

A breeze, a Prairie Crocus. Or two.
In the Prairies - or in this case - at Banff! 
(And that startled us... We didn't realize they'd grow 
in dry alpine or montagne landscapes, too. Who knew?) © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Prairie Crocus  
Location: Top 2: Wascana Trails, near Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; lower 2: Near Banff, Alberta.
Photo Date: Top 2: April 16, 2016; lower 2: April 12, 2016 

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