Southwest Colorado Wildflowers, Frasera speciosa

Monument Plant, common in mountain meadows, is a robust and showy plant that scatters itself over large areas. The tall flower stalks erupting from a very large basal rosette of leaves attract our attention, but a careful look around will reveal numerous smaller Monument Plants not in flower.

Until quite recently Monument Plant was thought to be biennial, i.e., basal leaf growth in the first season, flower and then seed growth in the second season, and death of the plant at the end of the second season. But continuous research since 1973 by Dr. David Inouye at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado indicates that Monument Plant flowers only once in its lifetime of 20 to 80 years and then dies. It is thus called a monocarpic plant, i.e., one which grows many years, flowers once, then dies. Perhaps the most well know monocarpic plant is the Southwest's Century Plant.

Dr. Inouye's research also shows that large numbers of Monument Plants flower every 2-4 years. When such a coordinated flowering occurs, dozens, or even hundreds of plants flower within a small area (often a sunny, grassy hillside). The 2003 blooming season was the most spectacular the past 40 years. The 2005 blooming season almost equaled the 2003 season.

Dr. Inouye has found that the microscopically detectable flower stalk begins forming about three years before it actually erupts into its massive stalk, and he suspects that there are environmental factors which trigger the flowering.

Monument Plant is often mistaken for Mullein (Verbascum thapsus, a yellow Scrophulariaceae) or Corn Lily (Veratrum tenuipetalum, a white Melanthiaceae). But Monument Plant has several distinguishing characteristics: in the non-flowering plants the leaves of the huge basal rosette are long, narrow, smooth, and pale green; in flowering plants the leaves along the flower stalk are also long and narrow, becoming shorter toward the top of the plant. Flowers are wide open, green/white, numerous, and star-like. Mullein's leaves are downy soft and flowers are tiny and yellow near the top of the flower stalk. Corn Lily's leaves are pleated and elliptical and flowers are quite small and green.

This plant was first collected for science by David Douglas (of Douglas Fir fame) in the present-day Spokane area in the early 1830s. The genus name, "Frasera", is for John Fraser, 18th century nurseryman and botanist who collected for Kew Gardens and the Empress of Russia. "Speciosa" ("showy") is for the leaves and massive display of flowers. (More biographical information.)