Another Field Trip

For this field trip we surveyed for Opuntia basilaris var. brachyclada, Shortjoint beavertail cactus, and we found it. The areas had suffered from a burn a couple of years before, but the cacti were making a comeback. We also had a lot of fun scrambling up formations at Mormon Rocks. I also headed up to Ridgecrest the next week to give a presentation to the local CNPS chapter. It's an interesting drive. The presidents of the chapter has a beautiful native plant/xeric garden near the foothills of the Sierras. Oh how I love the desert!

The Desert in Fall

This was my first time to the Mojave desert in the fall and it was more beautiful than I even expected. There weren't many things blooming, but the mountains and the structure of the trees and shrubs and the silhouettes of the Joshua Trees were wonderful to behold. We had a field trip out to Joshua Tree National Park and found this rare little beauty-Coryphantha alversonii, Foxtail cactus.
Some things were blooming with a vengeance, see California fuschia, Epilobium canum ssp. latifolium below.

He's another one of our finds. This is the desert after all.