This photograph was taken on an early spring hike along Heart Creak which runs along side Heart mountain just right of the Lafarge cement plant near Exshaw, in the lovely Canadian Rockies. The blooms of the Prairie Crocus emerge from the ground before its leaves have develop, often before the snow has melted. The cup-shaped flowers, in varying colours from royal purple to bluish-lavender and occasionally white, often paint entire hillsides in the grasslands and open woods. This lovely plant is the floral emblem of Manitoba and the state flower of South Dakota.