Wildflower Hunting in the American Southwest - Colorado

Colorado Wildflowers

Crested Butte, Colorado Wildflower Festival

Visit during July in beautiful Crested Butte for a week of botanical celebration! Bring your family and together you will have an unforgettable experience: enjoy breathtaking mountain landscapes and magnificent native flora that prompted the 1989 designation by the Colorado Legislature as the Wildflower Capital of Colorado.

Marble, Colorado

In this beautiful high country, blossoms start to emerge in mid-June and last through September, though the peak of the wildflower season is generally acknowledged to be the third week in July. When wildlfower season is over, beautiful berries dot the high country.Directions to Marble

Flowers of Southwest Colorado

Great web site for the identification and appreciation of mountain and desert plants in the Four Corners area of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.

University of Colorado Wildflower Photo Album

These Colorado wildflower pictures are arranged by flower color. The scientific name of the plant is listed underneath its picture.

Colorado State Parks Tour de Fleur

Visit the twenty-one parks throughout the state that are highlighted in the Tour de Fleur, a wildflower tour of Colorado State Parks. See the vibrant colors of spring and catch a glimpse of the featured flowers—Colorado Columbine, Mule’s Ear, Pasque Flower, Penstemon, Prickly Pear Cactus, Scarlet Paintbrush, Sego Lily and Shooting Star. These flowers are also depicted on the wildflower bookmarks that can be collected at each park on the Tour de Fleur.

Official Wildflowers

Colorado's State flower is the Rocky Mountain Columbine. However, in 1982 when the wildflower series of U.S. stamps was issued, the Moss Campion was featured for Colorado. According to the American Meadows website, as legend has it, long ago in Rome when someone saw the quaintly-shaped, five-spurred Columbine, his lively imagination pictured five little doves perched on the rim of a dish feeding together, so he named the flower columbina, from the Latin columba, meaning "dove." The five petals form funnels, each ending in a slender, upward-curving spur. These spurs contain nectar, and short-tongued insects sometimes nip holes in them to collect the sweet juice. Columbines grow wild in many places, and many varieties of different colors are cultivated in gardens

Arizona Wildflowers
New Mexico Wildflowers
Utah Wildflowers
Colorado Wildflowers