Back in January we heard that things were already blooming in Death Valley National Park and we started having some discussions about a possible trip there. These kinds of years are very infrequent, generally about once a decade, the last having been in 2005, and we quickly made plans to go. The group that we assembled included myself, Tom Chester, Kate Harper, RT and Shaun Hawke, Nancy Accola, Keir Morse, Katie Gallagher and Mary Blackburn. Kate Harper and I explored a section of lower Titus Canyon on Friday afternoon and then on Saturday morning, while waiting for everyone to arrive at the Death Valley Visitor Center, we coincidentally and fortuitously ran across a group of botanists from Colorado and other places who were heading down to the same area we were planning to visit, and so we joined up and spent the day together. On Sunday morning we ventured up into Echo Canyon to find some more wonderful species. The whole weekend was a terrific experience and we saw many wonderful things. It was just about the peak bloom time for the low elevation flora of the valley at least in the southern part. The symbol ^ next to the common name indicates a taxon that was new to me when I photographed it on this field trip. The photo of Tom Chester was not taken by me. |
