Dan's Outside

I go, I see, I do, I walk, I think, I like…

Help with a wildflower ID?

Late-Season Corn Lilies

Speaking of my Ten Lakes Basin pack trip, I wonder if anyone out there can help me identify the white flower that appears in this photo? I’ve just spent a half hour staring at some wildflower ID books that I own and looking at internet resources, but I just can’t quite find the match – which seems odd since this flower is something I’ve see frequently in the Sierra.

As the photo shows there are small clumps of little white flowers in groups at the end of stems, and each of the stems holding a group of flowers splits off from the same point on the single main flower-bearing stem of the plant. There are – I think – a few very thin leaves along the stem. I do not know what the plant looks like below the portion that we can see here.

I saw many of these on the Ten Lakes Basin trail in Yosemite earlier this week. These were photographed between 8500 and perhaps 9000 feet among corn lily plants at the edge of Half Moon Meadow. Being around the corn lily plants, it is obvious that there is a lot of moisture in this spot, though it was no longer all that wet. I’m pretty certain that I also saw this flower in drier areas.

Your help is greatly appreciated!

Dan

August 28, 2009 Posted by | Commentary | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Help with a wildflower ID?

California Spring Flowers

Despite the concerns about low rainfall this year in parts of California, there are some hopeful signs of a decent and perhaps even quite good spring wildflower bloom. A few notes:

  • I have visited Muir Woods twice during the past few weeks (some photos at my other site) and last weekend spectacular trillium flowers were just beginning to bloom
  • There have been reports of some very spectacular – though perhaps a bit early – blooms of the California Golden Poppy. One that is getting a lot of attention is in an area of a recent fire along the highway following the Merced River up into Yosemite Valley.
  • Today I saw some fairly good photographs of flowers in the southern California desert, where there actually has been some real rain this season.

For my part, I’m afraid I didn’t get at all so far this weekend to look for flowers – I seem to have a pretty nasty cold!

March 14, 2009 Posted by | Commentary | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on California Spring Flowers