Welcome to the University of Washington's Wildflower website. This site is devoted to increasing the knowledge of native and introduced wildflowers on our campus. We also hope that you will decide to get involved and experience the vast wealth of wildflowers the State of Washington and the University of Washington Campus have surrounding you.
Wildflowers are defined as; "A
flower of an uncultivated variety or a flower growing freely without human
intervention." This is a fairly
straightforward definition to understand. What it means is Wildflowers simply
grow WILD. And that makes a lot of sense, but what about the last part,
"without human intervention?" Well that seems to suggest that humans
aren't involved in the growing of wildflowers at all. In reality many of our
wildflowers growing on campus are introduced species (look at our "On
Campus" page for a list of introduced and native species). While these
introduced wildflowers may now have gone wild, they are largely here because of
humans. Some are weeds, some are pretty, some are poisonous, some are
medicinal, some are native, but the one thing they do all have in common is
that they are forbs. A forb (sometimes spelled phorb) is a herbaceous flowering
plant that is not a grass, sedge, or rush.The term is used in biology and in
vegetation ecology, especially in relation to wildflowers. Forbs are an
interesting thing to try and define but basically if it looks like a wildflower
most likely its a forb. The term 'forb' is a shortened form of the word
Euphorbiaceae, which is a family of plants that includes some well-known
grassland species such as Euphorbia corollata (Showy Spurge). Look at our plant
guide and you will see phorbia in the scientific name of several plants.
