Today we did a wildflower workshop with the Mono Lake Committee. Highlights were seeing displays that occurred just this year due to the heavy precipitation in a couple of relatively unknown places. Also explored Nanavut Trail just east of Yosemite for the first time, where we saw quite a bit of Red Mountain Heather and then checked out some of the wildflowers in Lundy Canyon.
The first large display was Soft Arnica/Arnica mollis which was on Oil Plant road. Oil Plant road is about three miles south of Lee Vining. We drove in .7 of a mile and then walked down the left fork of a dirt road a short way and came to the displays.
The second large display was Seep Spring or Common Monkeyflower/Erythranthe guttata which was formerly Mimulus guttatus, which was found about 1.5 miles out Horse Meadow Rd. Horse Meadows Rd. is also known as route 1N16 and is off of 395 about 1.2 miles south of Highway 120 West.
A quick slideshow of some iPhone photos from today
Click Read more to see plant lists from today.
Oil Plant Road – high desert Sagebrush area
Other flowers seen Great Basin Sagebrush, Bitter Root, Rubber Rabbit Brush, Evening Primrose, Wire Lettuce, Diffuse Gayophytum, alien Mustard, Yarrow, Soft Arnica, Whorled Penstemon, Eriastrum densifolium/Giant woollystar, Rosa sp., Tobacco Bush, Potentilla gracilis.
Horse Meadow Road – more high desert
Pinon Pine, Wooly Mullein (alien), Popcorn, Lupine, Mt. Chickweed, another Cinquefoil/Potentilla, more Soft Arnica, Phacelia hastata, Notch-leaf Phacelia, Phacelia bicolor. Also seen were bright green White-lined Sphinx Moth Caterpillars eating the Gayophytum, and one Sphinx Moth at the wire lettuce flowers.
Nanavut Trail (just east of Yosemite) highlight was Red Mountain Heather/ Phyllodoce breweri, Dana Lupine (low growing), Pussypaws, Dusky Horkelia, Mt. Pride, Sulphur Buckwheat, Shieldleaf, Labrador Tea
Lundy Canyon – Pennyroyal, Wyoming Paintbrush/Castilleja linariifolia, Bridge’s Paintbrush (bright red), Leichtlin’s Mariposa Lily, Dogbane, Sulphur Buckwheat, Soda Straw Angelica, Creambush, Blue Elderberry, Wallflower, Fleabane, Naked Buckwheat,
Natural History Wanderings 
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