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Claytonia rosea
Also called Rocky Mountain Spring Beauty, Madrean Spring Beauty, Madrean Springbeauty
Western springbeauty is a small spring ephemeral wildflower from western North America that grows from a tiny round tuber and blooms pale pink to magenta very early in the season. It is grown mainly in rock gardens and wildflower plantings, and it needs well-drained soil and protection from both summer drying and flooding.
Claytonia rosea, commonly called Rocky Mountain spring beauty, western springbeauty or Madrean springbeauty, is a diminutive spring blooming ephemeral plant with pale pink to magenta flowers. It grows a small round tuberous root and it one of the earliest wildflowers of spring in its range. It is found in dry meadows in forests of ponderosa and Chihuahuan pines, and moist ledges of mountain slopes of the Beaver Dam Mountains of Utah, Colorado Front Range, and Sierra Madre Occidental (including the Chiricahua Mountains), south and east to the Sierra Maderas del Carmen of Coahuila.
Rocky mountain spring beauty is occasionally grown in rock gardens or by those interested in wildflower gardening. Replanted corms will persist for a time even in less than ideal conditions, but will decline without reproducing if planted in areas subjected to either extreme drying during the summer or being flooded during rainstorms. Gardeners increase the numbers of this plant by seed rather than by division. Rich, well drained soil is their preferred condition in a garden setting. Plants are tolerant of being moved when blooming. Plants will freely reseed to produce additional individuals.
The roots, though small and not usually abundant, are edible. The wild foods author Harold D. Harrington found them to be crisp and starchy without much flavor when raw, but rather like earthy potatoes when boiled.
Claytonia rosea is the earliest flower of spring in the foothills and montane forests. It It grows in small meadows, open hillsides, canyons, ravines, and mesas of montane ponderosa pine, Chihuahuan pine, and oak belts. In New Mexico they are reported to be found more often on north facing slopes or in shaded canyons. They are recorded growing from 800–2,400 meters (2,600–7,900 ft) in elevation.
Arctic springbeauty · Carolina springbeauty · Heartleaf springbeauty · Serpentine springbeauty · Gypsum springbeauty · Lanceleaf springbeauty · Alpine springbeauty · Sierra springbeauty · Ogilvie Mountain springbeauty · Jonesville springbeauty · Streambank springbeauty · Miner's lettuce
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Claytonia rosea by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
