Frasera speciosa

Frasera speciosa Douglas ex Griseb. is the full, formal name. Commonly I've always heard it called monument plant or green gentian, but it has more aliases than Butch Cassidy. Literally.

Monument plant is apt because it stands tall and looks monumental in fields. It's ranges from less than 10 dm (3') to 20 dm (6') tall. I've never seen one 20 dm high -- that would be intimidating.

It's attractive appearance when flowering is odd since it's just one year in a life that can last 30. For most of it's life, F. speciosa is a low, easily-overlooked rosette of leaves. Then, one year, it blossoms into the monument plant we know, gets pollinated, produces seeds and dies.

That odd behavior leads to another, even odder, characteristic of F. speciosa. If the plant produces flowers only one out of possibly 30 years, then dies, what are the chances of it getting pollinated?

Really good, it turns out. Because the F. speciosa in an area have some way of signalling to all of the other F. speciosa that it's time to blossom. Then they all produce flowers in the same year.

At a distance, it's the foliage that stands out. It's almost perpendicular to the stem.

The stem is stout and stiff. It doesn't branch.