Indian Paintbrush. C. Affinis. Near Mount St. Helens

by Connie Fox

Title

Indian Paintbrush. C. Affinis. Near Mount St. Helens

Artist

Connie Fox

Medium

Photograph - Outdoor Color Photo

Description

Several types of wildflowers, most prominently bright red Indian Paintbrush, identified by my research as C. affinis, bloom in the rugged rocky ground of the Inner Blast Zone near Mount St. Helens, a National Volcanic Monument in the state of Washington, south of Mount Rainier National Park.

Castilleja affinis is a species of Castilleja known by the common name coast Indian paintbrush. It differs from Indian Paintbrush found in my home state of Texas. This variety is native to western North America from Washington to Baja California, where it grows on hills and mountains slopes along the coast and inland.

This is a perennial herb growing an erect stem up to about 60 centimeters in maximum height. The stem is greenish to purple in color and may be hairless to quite hairy. These are quite hairy. The leaves are variable in shape and up to 8 centimeters long. The inflorescence is a series of bracts in shades of bright red to yellowish. These are bright red, mixed with what may be purple lupines. Flowers appearing between the bracts are a bit longer and covered in hairs. They are green to purple lined with red or yellow. The fruit is a capsule just over a centimeter long

I find it amazing that anything manages to grow on the rocky ground of the Inner Blast Zone, which extends as far as 12 miles from Mount St. Helens. As of May 17, 1980, Mount St. Helens, in the Cascade Range, was considered one of the most perfect mountains in the world. But shaken by an earthquake that registered 5.1 on the Richter scale, the active volcano erupted at 8:32 a.m. on a Sunday morning, May 18, 1980.

A huge crater, shown in other pictures in this album, was created by that eruption. The north face of the tall, symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive avalanche of debris, much of it rock that one finds all over the bleak landscape of the blast zone. Some is embedded in twisted carcasses of evergreens bleached by the sun. Even our white car, parked in the driveway in Houston, Texas, was covered with a layer of dark ash from Mount St. Helens.

At several observatories and other resources, one can learn far more about this mighty volcanic eruption, as well as the subsequent activity that changed the face of this beautiful mountain, verdant region, and so many lives forever.

Copyright 2012-14 Connie Fox
All Rights Reserved
Nikon D80

This would make a fun jigsaw puzzle!

Featured on the homepage of Premium FAA Artists, Beauty, and Weekly Fun, March 2014. My thanks!

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March 2nd, 2014

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