Search This Blog

Anza-Borrego Wildflowers

Anza Borrego Desert State Park California Wildflowers
Anza Borrego Desert State Park
California Wildflowers
This cluster of wildflowers is typical of the flowers in Plum Canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert this spring. Because of the dry and harsh environment, most of the flowers are tiny like the three in this photo. But what they lack in size, they make up for in color.

It's pretty difficult to try and identify all these flowers, but I'm pretty sure the white one is Desert Pincushion. Help out if you can. I've been using the CalFlora.org website to try and identify the flowers in this series.

Comments

Michael Ziegler said…
Hi John,
do you know the name of the yellow flowers in this photo? I have a shot (not as nice as yours) of similar flowers that I found at the top of Enchanted Rock in Texas. It is amazing to me that they can find enough soil and nutrients to grow in cracks and fissures in the granite. Thanks for posting your photos.
If you'd like to see my blog entry with the photo, see:
http://myphotomemries.blogspot.com/2007/10/last-saturday-jan-and-i-took-walk-up.html
As always, I appreciate your work and aspire to your level of expertise!
Mike Z
Austin TX
John Corney said…
Hi Mike,

I actually spent quite some time going through the extensive database of flowers at calflora.org, but there are so many yellow flowers that look similar to this one that I just didn't dare to hazard a guess at it fearing that for sure I'd get it wrong.

I took a look at the flowers you referred to on your blog, but I would say they are definitely a different flower just from the count of petals there are on each flower.

Thanks for keeping an eye on my photos and for your kind comments.

John
Michael Ziegler said…
You're right, I went back to my shot and the flowers are different. To be expected I suppose since we're in different parts of the country.
Thanks for visiting my 'blog, though. I am always grateful for visitors.
Mike

Samoan Youth

This young man was preparing with his friends for his moment of fame on the stage at the Samoan Village at the Polynesian dance festival called Pasifika in Auckland in March this year. Samoan Youth Canon EOS 20D 1/30sec at f/20 ISO 200 Canon 70-300mm lens at 300mm More photographs from the same Pasifika Festival day can be found in my new post, Faces of Pasifika 2007 — A Day at Auckland's Pacific Festival .

A Grunge Botanical Collection — Five Painterly Garden Pieces

Over the past few weeks I've been building out a small collection of botanical pieces using photos taken in my garden here in Irvine, California, (and in one case out on a hiking trail here in SoCal), and using AI assistance to give each one a grunge, painterly treatment — dark, richly textured backgrounds with warm gold light breaking through, turning garden snapshots and trailside finds into something closer to old varnished still-life paintings than straight photography. Here's the full set so far. Epiphyllum oxypetalum — Queen of the Night, Painterly Botanical Art A night-blooming cactus that flowers just once or twice a year, for a single night — three blooms at different stages caught in one frame from a night it happened in my garden. Kangaroo Paw — Painterly Grunge Botanical Art Australia's velvety-flowered native, grown in my own garden, its stems reaching in different directions the way it actually grows rather than posed into symmetry. ...

A Steindachner's Ebony Tarantula at Crystal Cove

I crossed paths with this fellow on a hike at Crystal Cove State Park this morning, along the Fenceline trail. I posted it to iNaturalist as soon as I got home, and within a few hours had it confirmed by several people: a male Steindachner's ebony tarantula ( Aphonopelma steindachneri ). Turns out the timing wasn't a fluke. Males of this species leave their burrows specifically to search for mates between July and October, so this was a textbook-timed encounter rather than an unusual one — good to actually check that before assuming, since my first instinct was that a July sighting seemed early. After his photo session, I gently nudged him with a stick and he scurried off the trail into the chaparral, safe from being run over by a mountain biker or stomped by an arachnophobic hiker.  Aphonopelma steindachneri is native to the coastal ranges of Southern California and northern Baja California, and it's one of the tarantulas you're genuinely most likely to run into ...