The Most Common Plants in Alaska

[MoonShine]

Here are the most common plants in Alaska!
Devil's Club
This member of the ginseng family gets its name from its thorny appearance. It is sometimes confused in the literature with its eastern cousin, Aralia spinosa, also known as devil's club or devil's walking stick. Devils Club is found primarily in mature or old growth forests. It has been used as a blood purifier, pain reliever, tonic, and digestive aid.


Skunk Cabbage
The Skunk Cabbage is a large-leafed plant that grows in wet areas, especially near streams, ponds, marshes, and wet woods. It is easy to recognize, with its huge leaves rising directly from the ground.


Lupine
The Lupine lives in open habitats like gravel bars, meadows, marshes, and slopes. Bears love to eat the roots. Some butterflies feed off the lupine and lay their eggs on its leaves.


Monkshood
. It grows on wet grassland, stony or rocky slopes, and near forest streams. During the blooming season, the plant is very prominent against the background of other plants and attracts the eye. The common monkshood is one of the most poisonous plants of European flora.


Forget-me-not
The Alaska state flower. Forget me not flowers are very fragrant in the evening and night time, though there is little or no scent in the daytime. They can be annual or perennial plants. Their root systems are generally diffuse.


Fireweed
This coarse, homely American weed is an annual and derives its name from its habit of growing freely in moist open woods and clearings, and in greatest luxuriance on newly-burnt fallows. Fireweed is a rank, slightly hairy plant, growing from 1 to 7 feet high.


Bunchberry
Bunchberry grows in extensive low patches, with one bunch of leaves at top and just above that, a cluster of tiny greenish flowers surrounded by 4 ovate white or pinkish bracts. Bunchberry produces bright red, round berries in a tight cluster. The flowers are small, dark purple, produced in a tight umbel, and surrounded by four conspicuous white petal-like bracts 1-1.5 cm long. The fruit is a red berry.


Douglas Aster
Douglas aster is a patch-forming perennial aster with hairy stems and purple flowers. This Northwest native grows in both fresh and saline situations. It is a handsome plant with pretty late summer flowers. It is often offered in native plant nurseries. The leaves of mid-stem are lance-shaped and range from 7-13 cm long and 1-2 cm wide. The blades are smooth and hairless with toothed margins above mid-blade.


Salmonberry
Also known as the salmon raspberry, the salmonberry is an erect or sometimes leaning shrub with weakly armed stems, bright pink flowers, and yellow or salmon-red fruits that resemble a cultivated blackberry in all but color. The fruit is juicy and slightly sweet. Salmonberries are found in moist forests and stream margins especially in the coastal forests, where they are native. Books often call the fruits "insipid" but depending on ripeness and site, they can be considered quite good and are used for jams, candies, jellies and wines by locals. They were and continue to be an important food for native people.


Jewelweed
Branching annual with distinctive orange to red funnel-shaped flowers. Touch-me-not is found primarily along roadsides, along the edges of streams and marshes, and in other noncrop areas. Jewel Weed usually grows near water or in shallow ponds. It is often found in areas where Poison Ivy grows and is a very effective antidote for it.

Information collected from here(pictures are here): http://alaskatrekker.com/plants.htm