During a hike in the woods near his Summit County home, Tom Lebsack stopped when he spotted a bright pink burst in the brush.
A wildflower fanatic toting his camera across Colorado’s plains, foothills and tundra in search of the next little wonder to add to his portfolio, the source of the color was a treat for Lebsack. This was a Calypso bulbosa, he later learned, an orchid also known as fairy slipper.
“This was probably five years ago,” Lebsack recalled. “I have gone to that same position at the same time year after year, and I have never found it again.”
That is likely for reasons as variable and mysterious as nature itself. Calypso bulbosa has also grown on a conservation easement in Golden Gate Canyon, a ranch home to botanist Denise Wilson and her husband, Orvel Ray. The orchid has been among plants they’ve monitored for the better part of three decades.
They remember counts of more than 100 in years past. “This year? None,” Orvel Ray Wilson said.
He mentioned another flower he and his wife have collected data for: the yellow wood lily. Recent counts were a fourth of what they once were, Wilson said.
“And part of that, we can attribute to climate change,” he said.
A patch of blue columbine flourish in the Washington Gulch area with the recent rains outside Crested Butte. The blue columbine is the state flower of Colorado.
It’s a correlation of continued scrutiny and concern for experts and admirers amid prolonged drought in the West. Another summer comes with drastic conditions across Colorado’s Western Slope, home to many of the state’s most iconic sanctuaries of native flowers. Midsummer is a typical time for peak blooms in lower elevations, but observers report colors flashed best in June — a trend some say could be more common as flowers struggle to endure more days and weeks of heat.
“It’s always on our minds,” Tom Zeiner, president of the board of the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival, said of a warming climate.
The 10-day festival in Colorado’s renowned wildflower capital starts this weekend.
Glacier lilies bloom near the Paradise Divide outside Crested Butte. The 10-day Crested Butte Wildflower Festival begins this weekend.
“I always tell people, if you come up, you will see a pretty wide variety, but you may not see as many,” Zeiner said. His prediction for summers to come, echoing others as average temperatures rise and snow melts earlier in the high country: “A pretty good variety still, but just not as many. And maybe the timing will be different.”
Many flowers are resilient in short-term drought, explained Jennifer Toews, a certified Colorado Native Plant Master at Denver Botanic Gardens. Species are known to stock energy and lay dormant, waiting for wetter, more opportune times to grow.
“The effects of long-term drought need to be studied,” Toews said, “but we can speculate that long-term drought likely would have a negative impact on many species, as they ultimately may not be able to cope well with year after year of drought.”
Impacts compound over time, said Ian Billick, executive director of Crested Butte-based Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. Back-to-back years of drought mean reduced seed germination — fewer chances for later members of a flower family.
A marsh marigold blooms next to a pond on the Paradise Divide outside Crested Butte.
“In a drought like this, we’ll probably see fewer wildflowers for 10 or 20 years later,” Billick said.
Species adapt. But “that evolution is not happening nearly as quickly as the changes we’re experiencing in these ecosystems,” Billick said.
That was one takeaway from a recent study in the meadow around Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. Spanning 25 years and hailed as one of the world’s longest experiments related to climate change when published in 2018, the study concluded the cream-colored northern rock jasmine could go extinct based on warming trends.
Scarlet gilia fairy trumpet and silver lupine bloom on the banks of the East River near Gothic.
In 2015, University of California-Davis researchers reported findings from another long study: After 14 years of tallying wildflowers in a single preserve, they noted declines clear enough to a “relatively casual observer.” Data from this Northern California land and at the Crested Butte meadow signaled a warning, researchers said. “We’re probably going to be continuing to get hotter and drier, and we’ll see some plants just aren’t going to be successful,” said Irene Shonle, a horticulture associate with Colorado State University Extension in El Paso County. “Basically, this will be natural selection in action.”
Where there are native vacancies on the ground, invasive species commonly prevail; native flowers struggle to regain footing. Orvel Ray Wilson said he has seen that in his many years of citizen science around Golden Gate Canyon.
He also fears mounting reports of imperiled pollinators. Citing climate change and habitat loss, scientists continue to track diminishing populations of bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and others that help fertilize flowers.
“With a dearth of pollinators, I would expect to see fewer flowers,” Wilson said.
Flowers will be there for future generations to behold, but with changes, Billick said.
“I think they’ll be less intense, and maybe a little less frequent,” he said. “We just have to learn to appreciate what we have.”
Which is what Lebsack has done with his camera. He may never find that pink orchid again, but he expects there will be something to photograph whenever he goes out this time of year.
“That’s the thing,” he said. “You can always find something blooming if you look hard enough.”
This content was originally published here.
