Arrowleaf might be confused with Mule's Ears but the leaves of the two are quite different: Arrowleaf leaves are about four inches wide, six-to-nine inches long, and arrowhead shaped; Mule's Ears leaves are two-to-four inches wide, up to sixteen inches long, and shaped like Mule's ears.  The overall Arrowleaf plant is usually several inches shorter with smaller flowers.  Arrowleaf also tends to bloom several weeks earlier than Mule's Ears. 

Arrowleaf Balsamroot's single flowers appear on a stalk above the arrowhead shaped leaves. Arrowleaf can be found scattered singly in open woods or in large patches in meadows.  After Arrowleaf's flowers die, the leaves wither quickly and remain brown and rattling in the wind all summer long.  You can see last year's dried, gray flower stems and leaf skeletons especially at the bottom of the plant at left.

"Balsamorhiza" refers to the Balsam-like taste and smell of the root ("rhiza" in Greek), and "sagittata" is Latin for "arrow", as in "Sagittarius", the legendary archer.

The first specimens of this plant were collected by Meriwether Lewis on the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the Rockies in 1806.  The plant was at first named Buphthalmum sagittatum by Frederick Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis in 1814 and then the genus and species were renamed Balsamorhiza sagittata by Thomas Nuttall in 1834.

Foothills. Woodlands, openings. Spring.
Can Do Trail above Narraguinnep Reservoir, April 22, 2009.
Dolores River Overlook Trail, April 28, 2008.