Oh, and I'll say again, especially to you pika---I'm not here to hide a lot of information from what will be available in some book. To those serious about wanting to know more this spring to enjoy your first taste of things, feel free to contact me! As numerous people on this board will already attest, I won't run and hide if you ask me questions.
Pika--you found impressive and excellent flowers to shoot! Everyone needs to try to get over to the basin in the next 2-3 weeks as from all accounts that I have talked to, this years desert flower show is lined up as one of the best in many years! It was a very wet winter and the sudden warm-up early on really got stuff cooking. It's showtime folks. At least go follow Pika's plans (and JimK's annual trek) and see what color we have this year!
Alan
This is a book I'm definitely looking forward to.
This is a flower year like no other for exactly the reasons Alan mentions and we've gotten some decent thunderstorms over the past week-and it looks likely we'll get some today-which will keep this going for some time.
Unfortunately, the last time I can remember it being this green early,some tool started a fire where the old corrals used to be in the Cottonwood area and it burned off the whole South Ridge and down into the Roza-a fairly spectacular sight but pretty disappointing.
"The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights is my concealed weapon permit."-Ted Nugent
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"The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights is my concealed weapon permit."-Ted Nugent
Alan,
You mentioned in a previous post that you had a couple of good flower guides for the east side, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind posting the title/author information. My thin little flower book just wasn't cutting it.
For example, there were smaller versions of the Balsamroot with very different leaves that were not in my book. I've since identified these as Hooker's Balsamroot. I would really like a more comprehensive field guide, and any help would be much appreciated.
Pika,
You bet, thanks for reminding me. While every resource always seems to be missing something, the following is a short list of some which I find very valuable for myself:
Sagebrush Country: A Wildflower Sanctuary by Ronald J. Taylor (1992, Mountian Press Publishing Company)
Wildflowers of Washington by C.P. Lyons (1999, Lone Pine Publishing) (heavy on western forest stuff but also very good coverage on the east slope Cascades areas which have many similar species as you can find in the basin. It does cover cactus and other desert only species pretty well too)
Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia and the Inland Northwest by Parish, Coupe, and Lloyd (1996, Lone Pine Publishing) (winner for the longest book title of the bunch---a very comprehensive guide to everything from flowers to weeds to trees to you name it)
Hope this helps you out--it should be a great start anyhow.
ALSO...for more general information on the regions we're talking about I cannot recommend enough the GREAT newer title that came out within the past year or two
Northwest Arid Lands: An Introduction to the Columbia Basin Shrub-Steppe by Georganne O'Connor and Karen Wieda (2001, Battelle Press... http://www.battelle.org/bookstore)
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