Salt and pepper adds spice to spring
The flowers of salt and pepper are tiny and arranged into compound groups called umbels, or bouquets in the shape of an umbrella
In March and April of each year I get anxious for the arrival of spring. I watch the days get longer and visit a variety of sites in Colorado and on the Colorado Plateau to see what is up and blooming and who is pollinating. For two years in a row I have noticed white and red umbels of a small plant beside the High Plains Trail in our Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP). But I could not identify it, so I sent photos of it to local experts.Ìý
Lynn Riedel in OSMP and Tim Hogan in CU's Museum Herbarium both identified it as Lomatium orientale, one of the spring parsleys commonly called salt and