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The Reds of Autumn
While yellows, golds, tans, and rusts are
the most frequent autumn compliments to Rocky Mountain National
Park's blue skies and expansive green of evergreen forest,
many park inhabitants provide a dash of red to the scenery.
Red berries are common below treeline. Kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos
uva-ursi) and rose hips (Rosa woodsii) are bright
red and provide important autumn food for hungry bears, squirrels,
and other animals fattening up for winter. Rose hips contain
very high levels of vitamin C and were used as food and medicine
by Native Americans in prehistoric times.
Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis )
are spawning now in many park streams. Brook trout, like brown
trout, are autumn spawners, unlike cutthroat trout and rainbows
that spawn in the spring. Male brookies are generally the
most colorful, but both females and males have bright red
undersides this time of year. They are very easily identified
by the bright white lines on the leading edges of their fins.
Males are currently aggressively defending their nests (called
redds) and their females. One of the easiest places to see
brookies in the park is in the inlet and outlet streams at
Sprague Lake.
Another contributor to the autumn reds is
the very lovely waxflower (Jamesia americana) named
by famed botanist John Torrey after its discoverer, Edwin
James, the botanist, geologist, physician, and chronicler
of the second year of the 1819/1820 Major Stephen Long expedition
to the Rocky Mountains. James also discovered limber pine
(Pinus flexilis), chiming bells (Mertensia ciliata),
and mountain maple (Acer glabrum), all of which occur
in the park. Waxflower is the park's only representative of
the hydrangea family (Hydrangeaceae). It is a woody shrub
that produces single, white, 5-petaled flowers from May through
August, depending on altitude. It is a long-time Colorado
native - 35 million year old fossils of the same or nearly
the same plant have been found at Florissant
Fossil Beds National Monument in southern Colorado. It
grows on rocky hillsides and crevasses in montane and subalpine
areas. In Rocky Mountain National Park it is currently turning
a lovely shade of red throughout the areas where it occurs.
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Please click on captions for larger figures
and pictures
Rosehips
are sought after by bears fattening up for winter
Brook trout are spawning
now in many of the park's streams
Waxflowers
are currently turning red in the park
Photos courtesy of Rocky Mountain National
Park.
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