Oregon Wildflowers & Butterflies
Southern Oregon Wildflowers and Butterflies
Fritillaria affins
Wildflowers/Native Plants
First viewing of Oregon wildflowers starts in the early spring. See endangered vernal pools, with fairy shrimp and a series of wildflower blooms that change, on what seems like a weekly basis, at Table Rock (both Upper and Lower), as well as at Agate Desert preserve.
Above the town of Ashland, one can spot many wildflowers among the Oaks, Madrones and Manzanitas on trails such as, Oredson-Todd and White Rabbit. Late spring and into the summer both Pilot Rock and Grizzly Peak are fabulous places to see both flowers and butterflies.
Henderson Fawn Lily
As the snow melts up the slopes of the Siskiyou and Cascade mountains, Oregon wildflowers display a rotating parade of blooms that continue well into September. For some of Ellen’s favorite walks please go to the Day Trips page. The Siskiyou Chapter of the Native Plant Society conducts hikes, as well as the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center. The Siskiyou Field Institute holds botany classes for all ages. The Chanticleer Inn’s blog provides information on the up-coming events and hikes.
Calypso bulbosa Orchid
Butterflies
In 1953 Vladimir Nabokov finished writing “Lolita” in Ashland, Oregon. He came not for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, but for the butterflies!
As an avid amateur lepidopterist, he was drawn to this area for its extraordinary number of butterflies. And it was here, in Ashland where his passion for butterflies transformed into a “genuine mania,” as he himself put it. A plaque at 163 Mead St. (where Pearl St. crosses, just a block from the Chanticleer Inn) marks the location of the cottage in which Nabokov and his wife lived and wrote.
Mourning Cloak
Of the six butterfly hotspots in Oregon, Mt. Ashland (approximately 30 minutes from the B&B) hosts the largest number of species of butterflies — more than 95. Just east of Mt. Ashland, the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument hosts more than 113 butterfly species. Many of these butterflies are rare and endemic.
