Yellow Glacier Lily is a tiny, but beautiful flower that is common in the Rocky Mountains during the spring.  Here are 7 facts about this lovely spring flower that is a welcome sight after a long winter.

If you live in an area long enough and pay attention you will learn the signs of the seasons.  In the Rocky Mountains there are some flowers that bloom soon after the snow melts.  Those spring bloomers, such as Arrowleaf Balsamroot and the Yellow Glacier Lily tell me spring has arrived.  I love to see those small Yellow Glacier Lily’s dotting the landscape.

7 Facts About Yellow Glacier Lily

This is a short plant, growing between 4 and 16 inches tall.  The leaves and stalk of this look similar to a tulip.  In other words it has a tall central stem with two long, elliptical leaves growing off the stem that begin from close to the base of the plant near the ground.

These flowers grow from bulbs.  Native Americans liked to eat and trade the bulbs of the Yellow Glacier Lily.  The bulbs could be eaten raw or they could be cooked first, which made them sweeter.  In fact, the bulbs were even traded.

The flower is yellow and hangs upside down on the single tall stem.  Each flower has 6 petals that are curved back and 6 long stamens that point down towards the ground.

Yellow Glacier Lily blooms from May to July.  This seems like a long season, but actually each flower does not live that long.  The flowers begin blooming on low elevation areas and slopes with a  southern aspect early in the season.  Then as the summer progresses they begin blooming higher and higher up on the mountains as the snow melts.

This flower can be found throughout the Rockies, mainly in moist areas all the way up to the alpine zone of the mountains.  It grows in the southern and central Rockies.

This flower goes by many names, including Yellow Avalanche Lily, snow lily, and trout lily.  One of the reasons it is called glacier lily is because it often can be seen growing at the edge of a retreating snow bank.  As the snow melts in the spring the ground becomes very moist and this flower pops up and starts growing.

Both Grizzly Bears and Black Bears love to eat Yellow Glacier Lilies.  They use their big claws to dig into the soil to find and eat the bulbs.