A fun wildflower — Yellow bells are one of the earliest wildflowers to pop out of the ground in the Boise Foothills. This photo was taken earlier this week in the eastern end of the Foothills. Yellow bells are cool because they are easy to identify. However, they can be hard to spot even though they are brightly colored; you’ll only find a few here and there. This one was located near a trail but in a moist area below a rock outcropping. Yellow bells bloom in March and April at lower elevations, like in the Boise area and in Hells Canyon, and in May and June at higher elevations in Idaho. Lewis and Clark collected the plant on the Clearwater River on May 8, 1806, according to the second edition of “Idaho Mountain Wildflowers: A Photographic Compendium,” a good wildflower guidebook if you want to go traipsing into the desert and mountains looking for wildflowers.
Pete Zimowsky / pzimowsky@idahostatesman.com