Add botanical flair to your correspondence with these beautiful unused Mountain Flora Series "Alpine Buttercup" postage stamps! This alpine wildflower design is perfect for adding a pop of color and a touch of nature's splendor to your cards and letters or save-the-dates and wedding invitations. In pristine mint condition, these self-adhesive USPS forever postage stamps are valid for current mailing when combined with the total required postage based on the weight of your correspondence. The "Forever" designation means this stamp can be used to mail a standard letter at the current first-class letter rate, regardless of future postage increases, ensuring you can use them with confidence for your future mailing needs. Embrace mountain floral splendor with this captivating postage stamp!

Purchase includes a total of TEN (10) mint condition postage stamps shown in the product listing photos.

STAMP INFORMATION:

• Name: Alpine Buttercup
• Series: Mountain Flora
• Year Issued: 2022
• Face Value: Forever stamp (current first-class standard letter rate — see below)
• Topic(s): Flowers, Wildflowers, Floral, Botanical, Alpine Flowers, Mountain Flora, Spring Flower, Mountain Wedding, Rocky Mountains, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico
• Color(s): Yellow, Gold, Green, Multicolored
• Mailing Occasions: Wedding Invitations, Save the Date Announcements, Shower Invitations, Birth Announcements, Thank You Cards, Snail Mail, and more…
• Printing Method: Offset Press
• Scott Number: 5673 (coil version)
• Adhesion Type: Self-adhesive
• Condition: Genuine Unused USPS Postage Stamps, Ready to Use for USPS Mailings, Mint Condition

STAMP DESCRIPTION & HISTORY: The 2022 “Alpine Buttercup” Forever Stamp was issued on March 14, 2022 in Alpine, Wyoming, as part of the Mountain Flora series by the United States Postal Service. This stunning bright yellow stamp was illustrated by artist Lili Arnold, whose work for the series is rooted in hand-drawn botanical studies later refined digitally for clarity at stamp scale. The Mountain Flora series marked a deliberate thematic focus on high-elevation wildflowers native to rugged alpine and subalpine environments, emphasizing ecological specificity and resilience rather than generalized floral decoration.

The Alpine Buttercup stamp depicts a bright, open yellow bloom with glossy, cup-shaped petals radiating around a dense golden center of stamens. The flower is shown on a slender green stem with finely rendered foliage, set against a pale, airy background that suggests mountain light and open space. The illustration balances scientific accuracy with visual warmth, capturing the buttercup’s cheerful luminosity and its role as a hardy early-season bloomer in alpine meadows.

Botanically, the plant is classified as Ranunculus adoneus, and its various common names all point to the same defining traits: a bright yellow, glossy flower adapted to cold, mountainous environments and a brief but vivid growing season. It is often called “mountain buttercup,” emphasizing its high-elevation range, and “snow buttercup,” a reference to its tendency to bloom soon after snowmelt in alpine meadows. In some regional and botanical contexts, it is also known as “highland buttercup” or “alpine meadow buttercup,” names that distinguish it from lowland buttercup species.

The Alpine Buttercup is found primarily in high-elevation alpine and subalpine environments of western North America. Its range extends through the Rocky Mountains, including Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and New Mexico, and into parts of the Sierra Nevada and other mountainous regions of the western United States. This wildflower typically grows in alpine meadows, open slopes, and tundra-like landscapes, most often at elevations above 10,000 feet, where snow lingers late into spring. It blooms shortly after snowmelt, taking advantage of saturated soils and intense mountain sunlight during a very short growing season. Because of its reliance on cold climates and specific elevation conditions, the Alpine Buttercup is considered an indicator species of healthy alpine ecosystems and is rarely found outside mountainous terrain.

STAMP MEANING & SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE: Growing at high elevations where conditions are harsh and the growing season is brief, the flower is widely associated with perseverance, inner strength, and quiet courage. Spiritually, it symbolizes the ability to flourish despite limitation—thriving in thin soils, intense sun, cold temperatures, and lingering snow. Its emergence soon after snowmelt gives it a strong association with renewal, awakening, and hope, marking the return of life after dormancy and hardship.

The buttercup’s bright, luminous yellow petals deepen its symbolic meaning. Yellow has long been linked to joy, clarity, warmth, and divine light, and in spiritual traditions the Alpine Buttercup is often seen as a reminder that light persists even in austere or challenging environments. Unlike cultivated garden flowers, its beauty is modest and fleeting, reinforcing themes of presence, humility, and appreciation for the moment. In this way, the Alpine Buttercup is not a symbol of abundance through excess, but of abundance through endurance.

STAMP SERIES HISTORY: The 2022 Mountain Flora series was issued by the United States Postal Service (USPS) on March 14, 2022, with the official first-day-of-issue city designated as Alpine, Wyoming, a location chosen to reflect the high-elevation environments celebrated by the stamps. The series marked a focused evolution of USPS floral issues, narrowing its scope to wildflower species native to mountainous and alpine regions of North America—plants adapted to short growing seasons, cold temperatures, and rugged terrain. Issued as First-Class Forever stamps, the Mountain Flora designs aligned with the USPS’s modern, denomination-free approach to postage, ensuring long-term usability regardless of future rate changes. Artistically, the series adopted a clean, contemporary botanical illustration style, featuring single blooms rendered with fine linework, soft gradients, and generous negative space, evoking the clarity of field illustrations while remaining visually refined at stamp scale. Produced in both pane and coil formats, the 2022 Mountain Flora series balanced collectability with operational efficiency, reinforcing the USPS’s long tradition of using everyday postage to highlight native landscapes, ecological resilience, and the quiet beauty of America’s natural heritage.

PROCESSING & SHIPPING: Orders are typically processed and shipped within 1-3 business days of placing your order. All orders are shipped from California — please allow additional time for transit.

GENUINE USPS POSTAGE: These unused vintage postage stamps are perfectly valid for use as current postage for mailing with USPS as long as you use an adequate amount of additional postage to achieve standard postage rates according to the weight of your mailing. Check current postage rates on the USPS website.

ABOUT USPS FOREVER STAMPS: Forever postage is a category of First-Class Mail stamps issued by the United States Postal Service that retains its full mailing value indefinitely, regardless of future postage rate increases. First introduced in 2007, the Forever stamp was designed to simplify mailing by eliminating the need to purchase additional postage when rates change. A single Forever stamp is always valid for sending one standard, one-ounce First-Class letter within the United States, even if it was purchased years earlier at a lower price. In practical use, Forever stamps function exactly like traditional First-Class stamps but offer greater convenience and flexibility. They can be used on everyday correspondence, formal invitations, greeting cards, and business mail, and they may be combined with additional Forever or denominated stamps to meet higher weights or special mailing requirements. Because their value automatically adjusts with postal rates, Forever stamps are especially popular for personal stationery, weddings, and long-term stamp collecting.

VISIT MY MINTED STORE: https://www.minted.com/store/heritageposthouse

TELL YOUR STORY IN STAMPS: We’ve worked with hundreds of couples and their stationers to custom design highly stylized personalized postage sets based on our customer’s life stories. We can help you curate personalized vintage postage sets to commemorate your save-the-date, wedding, shower, announcement, and other special occasions in a truly unique fashion. Drawing on our encyclopedic knowledge of every stamp ever issued by the USPS, and sourcing from our extensive inventory of collectable unused vintage stamps, we’ll help you tell your unique story in stamps!

ABOUT HERITAGE POST HOUSE: Jennifer Kramer is the founder of Heritage Post House, a boutique vintage postage house located in Northern California. Jennifer sources the most beautiful unused vintage postage stamps ever issued by USPS and artfully arranges them into curated postage sets that are sure to add a special touch to your invitations, announcements, and special mailings. In addition to creating pre-arranged postage sets, Jennifer also works with couples (and their stationers) to create one-of-a-kind custom postage arrangements for wedding invitations, save the dates, and other special occasions.


Product Specifications

Length: 0.98 in.
Height: 0.01 in.
Width: 0.88 in.
Weight: 0.01 lbs.