Page 234 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Alaska

232  ALASK A AREA B Y AREA

Alaskan Wildflowers and Berries

Beginning in the spring and through the short northern summer, a series of wildflowers
splash color across the Alaskan landscape. Plants of the same species may bloom as
much as six weeks apart, depending on their location. Perhaps the finest show is in the
Pribilof Islands, where the summer-long sequence of wildflower displays is renowned.
Throughout Alaska, from mid- to late summer, edible berries emerge, many developing
from the flowers of the early summer. In the late summer, after the salmon runs, this rich
harvest provides sugar for the bears, to fatten them before they take to their winter dens.

Salmonberries can
be either red or
yellow in color.
Wild blueberries
are popularly
used in pies and
Lowbush cranberries are desserts.
tart fruits that grow in both
muskeg and tundra.
Berries
Wild strawberries grow in southern and
central Alaska in late June, followed by the
cloudberries and blueberries that carpet many
parts of the state. Rose hips and lowbush
cranberries ripen in late summer.

Labrador tea grows The aromatic leaves
mainly in muskeg. can be used as tea.

The chocolate lily,
also called skunk lily
due to its smell, is
found in damp
woodlands and Lupines, found
open meadows. in a range of
Wildflowers elevations,
During Alaska’s short flowering season in the summer, bloom in June.
the forests, bogs, and meadows are alive with the
brilliant colors of blooming wildflowers. Tiny northern The alpine forget-
anemones and delicate pasqueflowers appear first, often me-not, Alaska’s
just after the snow melts. At the height of sum mer, bright state flower,
fireweed, lemon yellow Arctic poppies, skunk cabbage, blossoms between
and other flowers carpet the landscape. May and August.
Fireweed
Every summer, large swathes of the landscape
turn purple as fireweed blooms. The young
stems and leaves are rich in vitamins A and
C, and Athabaskans have long eaten them
either boiled or raw, and used raw cut stems
to draw infection from boils. When the
blooms go to seed and turn to cotton fluff,
Fireweed in leaving only the topmost flower, Alaskans Villous cinquefoil, one of the first
full bloom say that the winter is only six weeks away. wildflowers to bloom, grows in
cracks in boulders and cliff faces.

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