Pink fairies is a delightful, easy-to-grow annual wildflower.  Its distinctive deeply lobed, magenta-coloured petals give this plant its other common names, including deerhorn and elkhorn clarkia.   In the West Kootenay, it is found on dry sunny slopes that are moist in the spring.

It blooms in the first year of growth and is quite drought tolerant. Supplemental watering can extend its flowering throughout the summer.  It will reseed itself year after year, as long as there is open soil and not too much competition.  

It is a specialist bee host plant, and attracts many bees, butterflies, and other pollinators with its striking pink pollen.