Wildflower Reports 2010
Nevada and Utah

Jan. 13, 2010 Paul reports: A few globemallow in bloom along a back road between Littleton, AZ and Mesquite, NV on January 11.

May. 26, 2009 Jim reports: Found this single cactus in bloom in the upper part of Monument Valley Utah.

May. 8, 2009 Rick and Margarita reports: Mormon Wells Rd to the pass and down to Sawmill rd. We went to Corn Cr. Ranger Station Sunday morning to make the loop over Mormon Wells Rd to hiway 93. We saw a wide range of flowers scattered about here and there. Cactus, asters, "belly flowers", paint brush and some others. After descending from the Sawmill rd, the landscape opens up into a burn area. We were not prepared for the magnificent display before us. For miles northward along the east flanks of the Sheep range were a wide variety of wildflowers. The predominent flower being globemallow but also lots of others I don't know the names of. I am sending lots of pictures and I will let them do the talking.

May. 1, 2009 Mark reports: Today, I drove through one of the most amazing wildflower display I’ve seen in the last 25 years. Sometime in the last 2-3 years, wildfire burned much of the flora in the Las Vegas Range alongside Mormon Well Road/Sawmill Road in Nevada. The plains out there are covered in Apricot Mallow, Desert Dandelions, Purple Sage, Fiddleneck, several paintbrushes, Desert Plume, Eriogonum inflatum (I’d never seen them blooming until today), Bush Peppergrass, and more I didn’t recognize. Map Link

Apr. 23, 2009 Carol reports: April 22, 2009, an afternoon on foot in Calico Basin, Red Rock Canyon, Nevada, revealed many plants in bloom. On the first stop along the wash I saw patches of phacelia, yellow wooly daisies, a few clumps of wild rhubarb, desert marigolds, Mojave asters, globe mallow, humble gilia, desert alyssum, purple mat and in the distance some spikes of yellow penstemon. Due to recent sprinkles and even an unseasonable snow, most desert plants are looking pretty green. If the “scheduled” heat wave doesn’t do them in, many more budded plants will be blooming in a few days.

Farther into the basin, a hike around the north side of the rock formations at Red Spring found more species in bloom. There were desert larkspur, Indian paintbrush, golden cryptantha, amsonia, straggling mariposa, wild hyacinths (blue dicks), blue-eyed grass, Mojave sand verbena, cliff roses, dyssodia, beavertail, strawberry hedgehog, bastard toadflax, paperflowers and astragalus. Some were well along in bloom and others just starting.

At one point there was a sudden scratching rattle from a clump of blackbrush nearby and a desert cottontail, ears stiffly vertical at attention, went bounding away as fast as it could go. The ever present lizards seemed especially skittish and none would hold still for photos. As the sun began going down behind the sandstone cliffs and throwing shadows, the night bloomers began popping open. There were some wonderful desert four o’clocks and clumps of yellow primroses.