The main purpose of this outing was to photograph a rare species of Astragalus whose main population is in the upper Whitewater Canyon area, and which has also been vouchered from the Mission Creek Preserve in the Morongo Valley. Whitewater Canyon is north of Interstate 10 just where you begin to see the wind machines in San Gorgonio Pass, a couple of miles west of where the 62 goes off to Joshua Tree. While the L.A. Basin was socked in and getting another in a seemingly interminable series of February rains, I drove out to the Whitewater Preserve and with the help of two of the staff naturalists had no difficulty in locating several plants which were much closer to the Preserve headquarters, the seeds of which were probably washed down from the main population farther up the canyon. Both the Whitewater Preserve and the nearby Mission Creek Preserve are being operated by the Wildlands Conservancy, as is the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve and Pipes Canyon Wilderness, currently closed because of the 2006 fires, and the Wind Wolves Preserve in Kern County. I plan on making several return visits to Whitewater Canyon over the next few months to see how this year's bloom is progressing and to photograph the Astragalus fruits which give this species its name, triple-tibbed milkvetch. Many of the blooming plants that are displayed here were photographed in areas of Whitewater Canyon other than the Preserve, the most accessible part of which is actually quite small. An asterisk next to the common name in this gallery indicates a non-native species, a tilde (~) indicates an uncertain identifiaction, while an upside-down V indicates a species that was new to me when I photographed it on this field trip.

Retrorse desert four o'clock
Mirabilis bigelovii var. retrorsa
Nyctaginaceae
[Named for John Milton Bigelow, 1804-1878]

Desert trumpet
Eriogonum inflatum
Polygonaceae

Creosote bush
Larrea tridentata
Zygophyllaceae
[Named for Juan Antonio Hernández Perez de Larrea, 1731-1803]

Small-seeded spurge
Chamaesyce polycarpa
Euphorbiaceae

Brittlebush
Encelia farinosa
Asteraceae
[Named for Christoph Entzelt, 1517-1583

Lotebush
Ziziphus parryi var. parryi
Rhamnaceae
[Named for Charles Christopher Parry, 1823-1890]

White fiesta flower
Pholistoma membranaceum
Hydrophyllaceae

White nightshade
Solanum douglasii
Solanaceae
[Named for David Douglas, 1798-1834]

Sow thistle *
Sonchus oleraceus
Asteraceae

Ferguson's bearded cryptantha
Cryptantha barbigera var. fergusoniae
Boraginaceae
[Named for Margaret Clay Ferguson, 1863-1951]