Fireweed
Chamaenerion angustifolium
Fireweed follows fire. An aggressive colonizer, it often carpets vast stretches of recently burnt forest, draping the green and black landscape with spectacular drifts of vivid magenta. Fireweed produces small seeds in great abundance and with their tufts of silky hairs they spread far and wide on the wind. The seeds germinate easily on sunny, exposed, mineral soil and once established fireweed spreads quickly from underground stems. When trees and shrubs gradually recolonize, fireweed’s floral show fades, but soon reemerges after the next fire.
Botany Break-Out
Fireweed produces its flowers quickly and easily. Flowers on the lower portion of the tall stalk open first, followed by the flowers higher up; the stalk keeps growing until the uppermost flowers fail to open at the end of summer. Each flower produces several hundred seeds and a single plant can produced tens of thousands of seeds in a summer.
