Native Plants of the Palouse

Written by Linda Cook and Larry Hufford
Marion Ownbey Herbarium, Washington State University, Pullman, Wa 99164-4238

Photographs by Larry Hufford

Funding for this educational program was provided by the Marion Ownbey Herbarium and the Washington Native Plant Society

The Palouse and its native plants

The Palouse is a landscape of rolling hills in southeastern Washington and adjacent northern Idaho. This region extends roughly from the Snake River Canyon in the south to just south of Spokane in the north. It extends from the mountains of the Idaho panhandle on the east to roughly the boundaries of Whitman and Spokane counties on the west.

The characteristic rolling hills topography of the Palouse began forming about 6 million years ago as tiny soil particles, blown on the wind, began to build-up around the vegetation in this region. This wind-borne soil that built into the hills is called loess.

The loess of the Palouse is a rich soil and most of the region is now devoted to agriculture. Indeed, most of the Palouse has been extensively modified by agriculture. One dramatic change on the Palouse has been the loss of most natural environments. These natural environments included unique associations of plants, animals, and microorganisms.

This program discusses one part of the natural environment of the Palouse: native plants. Native plants are those that occur naturally in a particular region rather than being introduced as a consequence of human activity. A population of native plants can originate by evolving in place, or it can get started by seeds brought in by wind, water, or animals. Each native plant species is important because it is part of close, long term ecological relationships with other plants, microorganisms, animals, and the physical environment.

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