Plant Portraits 16. Fields of Summer Brilliance

   (Note images in this series were generated with the assistance of modern AI tools. No actual human individuals are portrayed here. See the first installment of the series for further explanation)

In North America, Europe and central Asia, spectacular displays of wildflowers often occur in the late spring or summer, depending on how long the winter is. This contrasts with the displays we see in deserts, which pop up after a brief rainy season, or those we see in winter rainfall Mediterranean climates.

 

The red poppy, Papaver rhoeas, forms spectacular displays across Europe and Asia, and does 

particularly well in the disturbed soil of abandoned farms and battlefields. 

 

Alpine meadows are home to brilliant displays of wildflowers during their typically short 

summers.Here we see the fabled Edelweiss, Leontopodium nivale (Asteraceae) growing in rocks

 in front of the Matterhorn in Switzerland, along with gentians, columbines, buttercups, asters, 

and others.

 

The subalpine slopes of the Alps are home to the Swiss Stone Pine, Pinus cembra, which has provided edible seeds to indigenous people for millennia.

 

 

 

In Iceland, the "Iceland Poppy" (Oreomecon nudicaulis, formerly Papaver nudicaule) shares a

meadow with wild ponies. Ironically, neither is actually native to Iceland, a relatively young

volcanic mass that has not had time for unique indigenous species to evolve. The poppy is 

native to northern Asia and parts of North America.

 

 

 

The steppes of central Asia and Mongolia are home not only to grasses, but also seasonal displays

of wildflowers. Here we see the red lily, Lilium pumilium, yellow iris, Iris bloudowii, the purple 

Globe thistle, Echinops latifilius, and Scabiosa comosa, the national flower of Mongolia. 

 

Late summer displays of the Pine Lily, Lilium catesbyi, in a wet Florida meadow are a thrilling sight.

Beautiful, but suffocating. These lupines are escapees of garden varieties (mainly the Russell

 Lupine hybrids) that have taken over large areas of  alpine meadows in Europe, Iceland, 

New Zealand, and South America. They grow robustly, but at the expense of more delicate 

native wildflowers.