Montane, subalpine. Wet meadows and forests. Summer.
Wolf Creek Pass, July 15, 2006.

It is hard to believe that the two miniature species of Corydalis pictured above are related to the giant at left.  But they are.  Corydalis caseana subspecies brandegei grows from three to six feet tall, dies back in the fall, and starts its rapid growth again soon after snow-melt.  Flowers are about three-quarters of an inch long and vary from white to pink.

Asa Gray named Corydalis caseana in 1874 and there are now eight recognized subspecies that grow from northern California into Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Utah.  The subspecies are geographical isolated one from the other, but Idaho has three subspecies.  The subspecies brandegei is found only in nine southwestern Colorado counties and Rio Arriba County in New Mexico.

"Caseana" is for Professor E. L. Case of California, and "brandegei" is for Townshend Brandegee who was the botanist on the first Southwest Colorado explorations of the Hayden Survey in 1864.  Brandegee found the Colorado subspecies growing in the "Piedra Mountains, 10,000 feet altitude". (Quotation from Brandegee's report for the Hayden Survey.)  (More biographical information.)

Montane, subalpine. Wet meadows and forests. Summer.
Wolf Creek Pass, July 15, 2006.

Professor Joan Maloof of Salisbury University has studied Colorado's Corydalis caseana subspecies brandegei since 1996 after she noticed that bees were biting through the rear of the flower to extract nectar.  She wondered if these plants are rare because the bees were decreasing their reproductive capacity.  Her research has shown that Corydalis caseana  depends on pollinators which are not driven away by the "robber bees", and that although the robber bees tear through most flowers, they are not interfering with the plant's reproductive capacities.  (Information taken from the Salisbury University On-line Newsletter of 2002.)