The main purpose of this field trip was to collect samples of geraniums from a number of locations either from where I had seen them before or from where they had been vouchered. Recently questions have arisen as to how to discriminate between Geranium californicum and G. richardsonii. It's possible even likely that many of the herbarium vouchers identified as richardsonii are actually californicum. Recent work has proposed that they can be distinguished on the basis of whether the nectaries are glabrous or hairy, so I collected samples from five locations for Tom Chester to analyze, Fish Creek, Green Canyon, Knickerbocker Canyon, the road to Bluff Lake, and Holcomb Valley. And I saw a lot of other beautiful flowers at the same time, as the following pages show.

California geranium
Geranium californicum
Geraniaceae

Golden yarrow
Eriophyllum confertiflorum var. confertiflorum
Asteraceae

Southern mountain woolstar
Eriastrum densifolium ssp. austromontanum
Polemoniaceae

Yarrow
Achillea millefolium
Asteraceae

Nevin's bird's beak
Cordylanthus nevinii
Scrophulariaceae
[Named for Joseph Cook Nevin, 1835-1913]

Canyon bird's-foot trefoil
Lotus argyraeus var. argyraeus
Fabaceae

Southern monardella
Monardella australis
Lamiaceae

Lemon lily
Lilium parryi
Liliaceae

Cow parsnip
Heracleum lanatum
Apiaceae

Davidson's buckwheat
Eriogonum davidsonii
Polygonaceae
[Named for Anstruther Davidson, 1860-1932]

Southern mountain lupine
Lupinus excubitus var. austromontanus
Fabaceae

Smoothleaf yerba santa
Eriodictyon trichocalyx var. trichocalyx
Hydrophyllaceae

Desert crested wheatgrass
Agropyron desertorum
Poaceae

Spreading fleabane
Erigeron divergens
Asteraceae

Tiling's monkeyflower
Mimulus tilinigii
Scrophulariaceae
[Named for Heinrich Sylvester Theodor Tiling, 1818-1871]

White hedge nettle
Stachys albens
Lamiaceae

California false-indigo
Amorpha californica var. californica
Fabaceae