Natural History Wanderings

DesertUSA has the following California Wildflower Reports:

Anza-Borrego Mar 15 and Mar 16, explored around the highway 78 area of Anza Borrego park, looking at Plum Canyon, Mine Wash, Pinyon Wash, Harper Canyon and Grapevine Canyon. Ocotillo dominate the landscape and the best scenery is the Mine Wash Pinyon Wash area. While not out yet, the hedgehog, fish hook and beaver tail cactus are full of blooms, it won’t be long at all.

Mojave National Preserve  Saturday March 15th. We took the route from Nipton Rd to Joshua Tree National Park. Saw lots of wild flowers along the way in the preserve

Camp Rock Road  good day of wildflowers Monday (3/17), this time along Camp Rock Rd., in San Bernardino County. I drove from the bottom up; from Hwy 247/Lucerne Valley up to I-40/Daggett. While the greatest concentration of wildflowers was the north half of the drive, there were outbursts of flowers all along the road … and it is a really nice desert drive.
Camp Rock Road continued
Among the many species I saw were Yellow peppergrass, a single Yellow evening primrose plant (4 flowers), Broad-flowered gilia, Mentzelia sp., Golden evening primrose, Bladderpod, some of the reddest Globemallow I have ever seen, Phacelia crenulata, Schott’s and Desert calico, Fremont’s phacelia, Bajada and Mojave lupine, Cryptantha sp., Snake’s head, Spiny hop-sage, Cooper’s goldenbush, Blue dicks, carpets of False woolly daisy, Phacelia distans, Desert Canterbury bells, Mojave yucca, Cooper dyssodia, Mojave aster, Narrowleaf goldenbush, Desert five-spot, Pincusion, Mojave tickseed, and Beavertail cactus.

I also found a few Prickly poppies along Harrod Rd., just off of Camp Rock Rd., and Layne’s milkvetch along Hwy 247 in Johnson Valley. The Desert dandelion and pincushion bloom is spreading nicely along Hwy 247 from Landers into Johnson Valley. Camp Rock Rd is definitely worth a day’s investigating…

 

This next one was dated March 1, 2014 so it is outdated but has predictions for the end of March

North Table Mountain Ecological Reserve on Cherokee Rd in Oroville, CA(.3/1/14) Since there are no established trails and it was my first time visiting this location, I signed up for the free Saturday guided hiking tour on the Dept of Fish & Game website. After several days of rain, the seasonal waterfalls had a good flow. I saw 3 on the guided hike and 2 from the road. Although it is still early in the season, several different types of flowers were on display. There will most likely be a good showing of wildflowers around the end of March.

See photos and more reports at: DesertUSA