Hello!!
What is your favorite plant? (It can be a flower too)
Plant would have to be the alpine larch or the Douglas Fir
larch trees are living fossils, they are actually deciduous conifers. So they change colors in the fall and lose their needles in winter. The alpine larch is the highest growing tree in many alpine zones and is important for the health of alpine ecosystems(they anchor soil, make more soil with needles, and provide habitat for birds and mammals)
Douglas firs are what I am very attached to because they make up a lot of the forests where I grew up. I also love the shapes they make, old growth firs are stunning.
these trees are everything
For flowers I have a top 3:
SPOTTED SAXIFRAGE
these are my favorite wildflowers. They only grow in the alpine and like rocky cracks and soils. Really delicate with the pink spots on their petals.
Partridge-foot
Another alpine plant, these prefer meadows and damper soils. They make these beautiful lush carpets all over the sub-alpine regions. I like them because their leaves look like parsley (I called them the parsleys when I was a kid)
Pearly everlasting
They are called everlasting because once they bloom they stay like this all summer. They are a companion in the lower forests and subalpine zones. You will see them along a lot of trails on the sides of valleys. They get very dry in the summer months and make a really satisfying hushing sound when the wind hits them. They are reliable, you will see them out there, always blooming.
