McCain Valley is far from the prettiest place I've ever botanized. It's a somewhat flat terrain at an elevation (at least in the area we were in) of about 3,700', located north of Interstate 8 about 70 miles east of San Diego. It has been described as a broad rolling upland area strewn with numerous large granitic rock formations which loom above a chaparral-covered landscape to the west of the north-south trending In-Ko-Pah Mountains and south of the Carrizo Gorge Wilderness. It is a transition zone between the high chaparral shrublands of the coastal mountains and the low Colorado Desert country which occupies the Salton Trough to the east, supporting a wide range of habitats and environments. Native Americans have occupied this area for 10,000 years but today it is primarily the Kumeyaay or Southern Diegueno peoples who are associated with this region. In 1852, George McCain homesteaded and grazed livestock in the valley and his family continues to ranch there today, giving the valley its name. Gold was discovered near Cuyamaca and Julian which drew further settlement, but today it is lightly inhabited. Desert USA says: "Tremendous earth upheavals and persistent erosional forces over the eons have played important roles in sculpturing this region. A series of earthquake faults related to the San Andreas Fault extends along the eastern edge of the coastal mountains. Over millions of years, the land mass west of the fault system has been pushed up to form the mountains, while the land mass east of the fault system has dropped down to form the Salton Trough, of which the Imperial Valley is a part." With reference to the small and large boulders that characteristically dot the landscape, Tom Chester adds this: "the rocks are the Peninsular Range batholith, specifically here the La Posta pluton, which was a single pulse of magma that covers nearly 1,400 square kilometers. The pluton magmatic activity began between 98 and 95 million years ago and ceased about 90 million years ago." Tom Chester, Miranda Kennedy, Jim Roberts, and Jan Auburn were my companions as we slowly investigated three different areas, finding a great many species of wildflowers and other plants, some new to us, and surprisingly few non-natives. We were there to see and photograph a rare species that we hadn't seen before called desert beauty (see below) which we had reason to believe was in full bloom. I stayed two nights in the Back Country Inn, self-described as almost the only motel on I-8 between San Diego and El Centro, and dined at a restaurant in the Golden Acorn Casino. I made a second trip down there by myself two weeks later to see what else I could find. As always an asterisk next to the common name indicates a non-native species, and a ^ is for a taxon that was new to me.

White tidy tips
Layia glandulosa
Asteraceae
[Named for George Tradescant Lay, 1799-1845]

Yellow pincushion
Chaenactis glabriuscula var. glabriuscula
Asteraceae

Thurber's buckwheat
Eriogonum thurberi
Polygonaceae
[Named for George Thurber, 1821-1890]

Big sagebrush
Artemisia tridentata
Asteraceae