A Fungus Among Us

A few days ago I came across this flower. I was excite for a couple of reasons. First, it was the first yellow flower of the season- everything else has been white so far. Second, I couldn’t easily ID it.

Oooh, a challenge right out of the gate!

I looked online and reviewed books about Montana wildflowers- all to no avail. I asked my friend who has been wildflowering for much longer than I, and he suggested it didn’t look like flower petals. More like yellow leaves. When I sent the image to him, I mentioned that the plant leaves looked like a species of Pussytoes, but that I had never seen a Pussytoes with a single rosette before. So, I kept looking for flowers that matched.

Then, a few days into it, I posted it to iNaturalist and asked for support. Less than 24 hrs later, two folks in the iNat community had responded. It looked to them to be a fungal infection.

Mustard Flower Rust- Puccinia monoica

I cannot emphasize strongly enough how helpful iNaturalist has been in my exploration of the natural world.