Don’t we all marvel at the beautiful herbaceous plantings that some gardeners are able to accomplish. But I’ll tell you that there are whole plant communities in some of our mountains that that rival this for beauty and diversity.

This is a natural and native Wyoming plant community dominated by broad leaved, flowering plants called forbs.  The yellow flower belongs to cut leaf balsamroot and the pink flower to one of the many native geraniums – this one is sticky geranium.

These native forb communities can be found scattered throughout the mountains of Wyoming and other western states.  At one point in time, it was thought that forb communities were the result of improperly managed cattle grazing.  But years ago, researchers and rangeland ecologists realized the error in that theory and that these are in fact legitimate, native plant communities.

These striking forb communities are yet another Natural Resource Wonder of Wyoming.  From the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service, I’m Eric Peterson.