kemper 的最愛

These fading annual weeds were maturing their fruit in the lawn bordering the parking lot at Crossroads Elementary School. I saw a couple of patches of plants within maybe 10 feet of each other. The plants themselves were in the mow zone, and so mostly less than 5" tall. This is only the second time I've ever found these in Kentucky. This genus isn't even listed in Plant Life of Kentucky, so I had to resort to Flora of North America for a key.

Key traits: Three species of Centaurium have been introduced to the US, and two have nearly sessile flowers. Only C. pulchellum has as least some of its flowers on stalks longer than 2 mm. I've highlighted some in blue in one photo.

The plants I picked were pressed for NKU's herbarium (KNK).

~800' elevation. 
Prolific bloom in 1998 of the Desert Lily (Hesperocallis undulata), south side of the Dumont Dunes, San Bernardino County, Mojave Desert, CA.  March 28 is a tentative date until I can get access to the film images.

These images were taken with an early generation Agfa? point and shoot digital camera, therefore the lack of quality! At least it's a record.... :-)
 
Amazing density which extended almost from the base of the dunes well into the flats. Heights of many of the plants were up to or maybe even more than 62" tall.

There used to be signs maybe along the base of the Dunes indicating that this was an ACEC but it may've been more to the east. I don't exactly remember now. Somehow I thought the base of south side of the dunes was not open to OHV's but maybe that was wishful thinking. :-)

This was prior to the advent of the current popularity of OHV's. Dumont Dunes was quiet back then, especially the south side since  access at that time was only via 4WD & there weren't all that many on or off the road.

The diversity and density of wildflowers in this area was breathtaking.  I'm not sure what the OHV impact might have done to this population and the other wildflowers which were prolific there as well, but the Desert Lily really seemed unique.

On Carya tomentosa

First photo: top of leaf on left, bottom of leaf on right.
Second photo: in the gall on the right side, I’ve scraped away the top and you can see a tiny glistening dot that is the larva. There is viscous purple stuff that may be a deterrent of some kind.

What a nice evening blacklighting at Tandy Hills again! We had such fun on Saturday evening, so I decided I'd just go back out tonight to look for a few more bugs. It was a bit windy and still pretty hot, but lots of cool bugs showed up at the sheets! :)