labraydon7s favoriter

Not 100% sure because I wasn’t specifically seeking them out at the time, but I think these are actually sclero wrightiae. They fit the general description of soil type, shorter stature, and they technically occur just barely inside their range published by USFWS to the north-east of Emery, but this is also an unfortunate area that overlaps with parviflorus. This would be very unusual soil for parviflorus though, AND, the main thing that interests me is how there is plenty of seeds from the previous spring still attached to or on the plant. Never seen that before with any parvs or other scleros. Habitat as you can see is barren clay. Any help would be appreciated because this one is definitely confusing me. I will leave it un-obscured for now until I can hopefully get an ID. Side note, at least half of this population was dead and/or eaten unfortunately.

Lahontan beardtongue, Penstemon palmeri var. macranthus, Nevada, Pershing County, Humboldt Range, Humboldt Canyon, Humboldt City, Humboldt River watershed, elevation 1682 m (5520 ft).

This northwestern Nevada endemic variety is threatened by hybridization due to widespread use of var. palmeri (Palmer penstemon) in seed mixes outside its native range, which is in southern and eastern Nevada and farther south and east.

From 35mm Ektachrome Elite-100 color transparency film exposed with a Tamron 28-70 mm zoom-macro lens on an Olympus OM-4T body. Scanned at 4000 dpi with a Nikon Coolscan 5000, and restored using Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

Indian chickweed, Mollugo cerviana, California, Inyo County, White Mountains, Beer Creek, Deep Springs Valley watershed, elevation 1579 m (5180 ft).

This area received exceptional monsoon precipitation, with about 2.25 inches 5 weeks prior, and another 1.6 inches 4 weeks prior, to this observation.

Though considered introduced in this region, this annual species only appears after exceptional warm-season rains, and seems as well-integrated into the local flora as many of the other local native monsoon-triggered annual species.