CUriosity: What makes Colorado wildflowers so special?
CUriosity, experts across the CU 91Ҹ campus answer questions about humans, our planet and the universe beyond.
Sam Ahler, doctoral candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology and avowed fan of watching grass grow, discusses what makes Colorado’s wildflowers distinctive and special.
A Colorado columbine flower. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU 91Ҹ)
It’s trite but true: Sometimes there really are no words. How to describe every color of the spectrum represented in a single meadow, soundtracked by the low hum of busy pollinators? What words describe sunburst explosions of yellow, shy little peeks of purple or even the flamboyant, blue-and-white sweep of Aquilegia coerulea—also called the Colorado columbine and the state’s most iconic flower?
Maybe we only need two words: Colorado wildflowers.
People come from around the world to see them, especially during their concentrated, six- to eight-week peak from late June to August. Even in less spectacular years—which 2026 will be due to lower-than-average autumn and winter precipitation across the state—Colorado wildflowers are something to see.
Wildflowers grow across the globe; what makes Colorado’s so special?
One of the main factors is Colorado itself, explains Sam Ahler, a doctoral candidate in the CU 91Ҹ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and affiliate in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine 91Ҹ: “We have this gradient from plains to mountains, and a lot has to happen in a short time. There are six to eight weeks in summer where everything pops off. It’s a great place to see a lot at once because there’s a limited window.”
Beyond their short growing season, Colorado wildflowers also are special because of the tremendous diversity they embody.
“If we’re thinking of just the aster family, there are upwards of 500 species just in Colorado, which is pretty astronomical,” Ahler says. “With grasses there are about 360 species, which is a lot of diversity, and when you get down further taxonomically, penstemons, for example, include 60-something species. They’re all really closely related, but all are occupying a unique space. There’s such diversity here that maybe you don’t get in neighboring states.”
Wonders of adaptation
Plus, the plants themselves are wonders of adaptation, especially considering that the most important factor for an abundance of summer wildflowers is water, and Colorado’s is reliably unpredictable.
“If you were in Colorado during the 2025-2026 winter, you definitely realized we had way less snow than normal, and that was true from the plains to mountains,” Ahler says. “Especially in the mountains, all of the plants are thrown off (in dry years). They don’t get resources when they usually expect them, which causes all these shifts both in flowers and other organisms that rely on them.”
Colorado and the rest of the western United States are in the midst of a significant multi-year drought, but even before climate change began seriously affecting state ecosystems, Colorado wildflowers had become experts at adapting.
They also are vital parts of not just ecosystems, but communities and cultures, Ahler says. “Obviously, wildflowers are really important for pollinators, but a lot of other organisms are reliant on them. Too. They’re really tightly linked to everything around them, whether they’re relying on mule deer to transport their seeds across the landscape, whether people are using them for food provisioning or medicinal purposes, there are lots of different ways organisms are using and interacting with wildflowers.
“There are tons of fungi associated with wildflowers, and sometimes you’ll have one type of fungus associated with one type of wildflower, and those types of relationships are the relationships at risk when we think about changing precipitation and changing ecosystems. When wildflowers are disrupted, everything around them is disrupted.”
Silvery lupine. (Credit: Patrick Campbell/CU 91Ҹ)
A male Broad-tailed Hummingbird visits a scarlet gilia flower at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. (Credit: David W. Inouye/Wikimedia)
Left: Silvery lupine. (Credit: Patrick Campbell/CU 91Ҹ); Middle: Scarlet gilia. (Credit: David W. Inouye/Wikimedia); Right: Mariposa lilies. (Rachel Sauer/CU 91Ҹ)
Support your local pollinator
Perhaps one of the things that makes Colorado wildflowers so special, then, is that people across the state can support their populations. Beyond being aware of the issues of climate change and making lifestyle adaptations to lessen individual impact, people can plant wildflowers in their yards, Ahler says.
“Sometimes with landscaping you’ll see species brought in, cultivars that are not adapted to this climate,” Ahler explains, adding that while native wildflowers may not be beautiful in the way that, say, a flamboyant zinnia is, “if you look at something like the mariposa lily, that is just as beautiful as a zinnia and it has a long history in this landscape and its bulb was traditionally a food source for Native folks. There are hundreds and hundreds of species (of Colorado wildflowers) for you to pick from; you have to get to know what your options are.”
The more people learn about the incredible diversity represented in Colorado wildflowers, and how their adaptations and vital role in ecosystems make them so much more than beautiful, Ahler says, “the more people will see that’s what makes them special.”