I made a field guide!
After years of writing, researching, and botanizing in the Columbia River Gorge, I finally put together this back-pocket field guide featuring some of my favorite plants from the region.
Inside are helpful plant ID tips, plus notes on the area’s geology, climate, and traditional plant uses. It’s designed to be approachable and beginner-friendly—something I wish I had when I was starting out. More than just an ID tool, it offers an understanding to why plants grow where they do, how they adapt, and why they matter. It’s compact enough to toss in your backpack or glovebox, ready to join you on your next adventure!
A big thank you to those who came before me and shared their knowledge, and to the collaborators I worked with in the Gorge this past year. I couldn’t have done it without you. I hope this little guide helps you see the landscape in a new way and honors the rich botanical, geological, and cultural diversity that makes this place so special.
Copies are $20. DM me if you’d like one! I’m happy to deliver locally or mail it out. Proceeds go to the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, whose ancestral lands are home to all of the plants featured here. 💚
#columbiarivergorge #fieldguide #botany #nativeplants
Fragrant Evening Primrose (Oenothera cespitosa)
I nearly drove off the road when I saw this plant growing out of the scree on the side of the canyon. The huge white flowers were visible from the road, and I had to stop to figure out what it was. This plant just screams Hells Canyon, and it ended up being the first flower I stopped for on the trip. 🔎
I later realized it was in the evening primrose family, Onagraceae, based on the four petals, reflexed sepals, long floral tube, and prominent stigma. A lot of plants in this family also have 4 part flowers and an inferior ovary, where the seed capsule develops below the flower parts. Fireweed and Clarkia are all part of this family too. The flowers have soft heart-shaped petals, 8 stamens, and open in the late afternoon before closing the next morning, often fading from white to pink as they age. They smell incredible in the evening, which helps attract nighttime pollinators like hawkmoths!
It grows from a low rosette of narrow gray-green leaves and is well adapted to the dry rocky slopes and scree of western North America from BC to New Mexico and east onto the plains. There’s something so awesome about seeing such huge glowing flowers coming straight out of bare rock. #fragranteveningprimrose #hellscanyon #botany #oregon
Cusick’s Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja cusickii)
Zumwalt Prairie is one of those places where you stop every few steps because you see a new plant you’ve never seen before. This was the case for this Castilleja! At first glance, the color can be more subtle with muted pinks, pale purples, and sometimes a dusty ish magenta. The bracts (those leaf-like structures that carry the color) are often lightly tinted rather than fully saturated, and they tend to be narrower and more elongated than in some of the flashier species. The actual flowers are tucked inside. They are tubular and greenish with the stigma and anthers just barely sticking out.
Like others in the genus, it’s part of the Orobanchaceae, a family full of unique plant parasites. C. cusickii taps into the roots of neighboring plants to supplement its water and nutrient intake. Not fully dependent, but not entirely independent either. It’s a strategy that lets it hold its own in tough, competitive habitats in prairie swales, sagebrush steppe, and seasonally wet meadows across the inland northwest and northern Great Basin. There’s something I respect about this adaptation. It’s not overpowering the system, not fading into it either. It’s finding a way to exist in balance, pulling what it needs, connected to others in the ecosystem. #castilleja #zumwaltprairie
Blue Mountain Buckwheat (Eriogonum strictum)
While looking for Dorr’s sage, I came across one of my favorite genera... buckwheat! It’s always a fun surprise to find a plant you weren’t looking for. This species is adapted to high, dry sagebrush steppe and rocky slopes across western North America, from southern British Columbia through eastern Washington and Oregon, into parts of Idaho, Nevada, and northern California. The plant is notably woolly/fuzzy, with dense, silvery hairs covering the leaves and stems. This adaptation helps reduce water loss and reflect intense sunlight in its habitat. I wish I’d gotten a better photo of the leaves, alas! Its flowers form dense, rounded inflorescences that range from cream to yellow and are like little clouds against the desert sky. So happy to have finally met this plant in habitat! #eriogonumstrictum #badgermountain #eriogonum
Dorr’s Sage (Salvia dorrii)
My first native Salvia in Oregon! Growing up in California’s central coast, I ran into this genus all the time. It’s one of the genera that got me into botany in the first place, shoutout hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) … iykyk.
This shrub is adapted to the dry, high desert conditions of the Great Basin and into parts of the Southwest, including Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and eastern Oregon. It was growing alongside big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), rosy balsamroot (Basalmorhiza rosea), and bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata).
The flowers can range from deep purple and blue to pink, and they often persist on the plant well after being pollinated. The stamens (pollen holders) and style (pollen receiving tube) extend well past the corolla, making them an easy landing and contact point for pollinators. Like many in the mint family (Lamiaceae), the flowers are bilabiate, meaning they have two distinct lips formed by fused petals, and the flowers are arranged in whorls, which are circular clusters of flowers that radiate around the stem at a single node like lavender flowers. Oh, and the leaves/flowers smell amazing like many of the plants in this genus! #badgermountain #salviadorrii #sagebrush
