This beautiful blue flower (which actually was more purple in real life, except I was lazy, and didn't take a white card with me to balance the light properly—and my efforts in gimp didn't work spectacularly well either) is a native species, and, evidently, not endangered; but neither is it particularly common—I don't recall ever seeing them before.

Thus I felt particularly privileged to see them today; and thanks again must go to the wizard, who pointed them out to me. (So much for my perspicuity!)

fringed gentian. f4.5, 1/80sec, -0.3ev. 11:54am, 10/10/10.

No, I don't know whether this is the standard or lesser. And since I didn't do a good job of photographing the leaves, it'd be hard to find out. Looking at the paintings in my Peterson, though, I'd guess it's Gentiana crinata.

My fave pic. There's no large version cuz my focus sucked. 1/50sec, +0.3ev, f5, 11:52am. "shaded sun" white balance setting.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.