Mountain Flora Forever First Class Postage Stamps

Lili Arnold illustrated these four mountain wildflowers with Ethel Kessler as art director: a purple pasqueflower, an orange-red wood lily, a bright yellow alpine buttercup and a dark pink Woods' rose. The Postal Service issued them in March 2022 out of Alpine, Wyoming. Illustration rather than photography was the right call here - at altitude these are small, low plants, and a photograph would have lost them against the ground.

Common names are a mess with wildflowers. The same plant carries different names in different states, unrelated plants share names, and botanists keep reclassifying as they learn more, which is why sets like this list the botanical name underneath. The stamps go on garden club and native plant society mail, on correspondence from mountain-state businesses, and on ordinary cards that want a flower without a florist's arrangement attached. Booklets of 20, self-adhesive.