Thursday, June 17, 2010

Wildflower Detecting in Escalante


I went camping in Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument
for a couple of days with some friends.
It was a lovely trip.
I was surprised to see that so many flowers were still blooming down there.
Lots of cactus, mostly prickly pear,
but a number of other things too.
And in the Visitor Center of Capitol Reef,
as we were winding our way home,
I found a really great local wildflower book
that had just come out:
"Capitol Reef Wildflowers" by Deborah L. Clark.
It has some details and local species
that my regular Audubon book does not have.
For instance, the following globemallow
I was able to identify as the small leaf globemallow variety:



This stuff is giving me more problems.
I think it is probably a Hymenopappus,
but I can't quite really match the leaves to any variety I can find,
either in my flower books or on the web.


Here's one of the trail "flower gardens."
There were lots and lots of clumps of blooming cactus,
globemallow, and the Hymenopappus flowers too.
And many more!

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