April 2022 - 21

A favorite food for moose is fireweed which can grow in dense patches after disturbances like wildfires. (Photo by Dawn Wilson)
feast as temperatures warm. Those high
calories gained from flowers like the showy
hollyhock and the dainty prairie smoke help
put fat on bucks growing dense antlers and
does feeding their fawns.
Next time you stop to gawk at a burst of
purple, pink, orange or yellow know those
are not just your eye candy but meals for the
state's herds.
Mountain hollyhock
Iliamna rivularis
When it comes to a protein powerhouse,
few flowers beat the hollyhock, Randall said.
Wild hollyhock grow up to 60 inches high
and look a lot like the smaller version of the
ones by your fence or your neighbor's house.
Mountain hollyhock seeds can live in the
ground for more than 100 years waiting for a
fire to disturb the soil and provide necessary
heat to stimulate growth. They then have a
huge flush of germination, growing in thick
fields of leggy, showy plants, until they're
shaded out by shrubs and trees.
" It's Mother Nature's way of replacing a
forage value for the critters that live in that
landscape in that short term, " Randall said.
Hollyhock can help relieve some of the
pressure big game like elk and mule deer put
on aspen seedlings.
Where: Foothills, montane and subalpine
zones of south-central and western Wyoming.
When: June through August.
Helpful identification tips: Maple-shaped
leaves, white to pink flowers and five broadly
rounded petals.
Fireweed
Chamerion angustifolium
Few species like fireweed quite as much as
moose. Elk and deer will feed on the brightpink
flowers and green, leafy plant, but moose
find it particularly tempting, Randall said.
Fireweed is a native plant that thrives in
scars immediately following wildfires. Less
than a year after the Mullen Fire burned
176,878 acres of the Snowy Range in
southeastern Wyoming, the charred, black
ground was covered in some places by thick
fields of fireweed.
Wildlife often choose plants and flowers
based on protein content and digestibility.
Fireweed has both.
Where: Mountains throughout Wyoming.
When: June to August.
Helpful identification tips: Bright pink
flowers with four petals that grow on a stem
with long, lance-shaped leaves.
Wyoming Wildlife | 21
" When you're thinking about direct
forage benefit of wildflowers or
forbs to ungulates, they provide a
big bulk of the high quality nutrition
in the summer. " - Jill Randall

April 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2022

April 2022 - 1
April 2022 - 2
April 2022 - 3
April 2022 - 4
April 2022 - 5
April 2022 - 6
April 2022 - 7
April 2022 - 8
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April 2022 - 47
April 2022 - 48
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