Lovely lewisias: Montana's state flower and its cousins are among the West's favorite natives - Brief Article

Sunset, March, 2002 by Jim McCausland

In August 1805, one of the Lewis and Clark expedition's hunters surprised a band of Native Americans along the Missouri River. The startled group ran away, leaving behind a few roots they were about to eat. So the hunter took the roots back to Meriwether Lewis, who tasted them and pronounced them "bitter and naucious to the pallatte." (French trappers had named them well: racine amere, or bitter root). Eleven months later, though, when Lewis saw the plant in glorious bloom in the Bitterroot Mountains, he noted it in his acquisitions journal as a "singular plant." He gave a plant to German botanist Frederick Traugott Pursh, who renamed it Lewisia rediviva, after Lewis. The plant is now the state flower of Montana.

Among the toughest and most delicately beautiful Western wildflowers, lewisias are drought tolerant to a fault. (Fleshy, water-holding roots in L. rediviva are key to their drought tolerance: On a mature plant, the main root can be thicker than your thumb.) You can easily kill L. rediviva and L. cotyledon by giving them summer water, but if you plant them in fast-draining soil or in pots, they can keep flowering for years.

Where to begin

All lewisias are native to parts of the West. If you've never grown them, plant a small colony of L. cotyledon, native to California and Oregon, which bears flowers in white, pink, red, yellow, and orange several times (if you pinch off faded blooms) between spring and fall.

If you're willing to sacrifice repeat bloom for more sensational flowers once (in late spring), try L. tweedyi, native to south-central Washington, whose starlike cream- to peach-colored blooms are 2 inches across. Especially intolerant of summer water, this one is almost immortal when planted in a chink in a rock wall.

Plant either L. cotyledon or L. tweedyi in fast-draining soil in an east-facing location. Morning sun is perfect (the plants will burn in hot south- or west-facing spots). To get essential drainage if you don't have a rock wall, plant in a mixture of two parts sand or gravel to one part potting mix. Or use a commercial cactus mix.

Throughout most of the high-mountain West, lewisias, once established, will usually survive on rainfall alone. In hot-summer lowlands, water plants in the ground once every two or three weeks in spring and fall, and monthly during June, July, and August. Protect container-grown plants from hot sun in summer; water them rarely Avoid overhead watering.

Sources

Look for lewisia plants this month at retail nurseries or order by mail from Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery (541/772-6846) and Rare Plant Research (www.theamaterursdigest.com/rareplnt.htm).