Tom Chester, Dave Stith and I met in Anza-Borrego for this very interesting visit to the Borrego Badlands, an area I had heard of before but which I had never fully appreciated the significance of. It is indeed a "badlands," or malpais as the Spanish called it, criss-crossed with sandy washes, rocky arroyos, sand dunes and corrugated hills formed mostly of sedimentary conglomerates, sandstones, claystones and mudstones from the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs, and eroded by flash floods. This area also contained the fossils of Columbian mammoths, three types of camels, cave bears, ground sloths, gomphotheres, and many other species. We walked up the sinuous Dump Wash from near the Borrego Landfill site, and were appalled at the prevalence of Brassica tournefortii in quantities we had never before observed and could scarcely credit. Our original destination was Inspiration Point, but due to the length of time we spent exploring various ridges and gorges, we didn't quite make it there. A single visit is hardly sufficient to cover this area so we will have to go back again to see how things develop. An upside down V next to the common name indicates a species that was new to me when I photographed it on this field trip, and an asterisk indicates a non-native species.

Notchleaf phacelia
Phacelia crenulata var. ambigua
Hydrophyllaceae

White mallow
Eremalche exilis
Malvaceae

Desert sand verbena
Abronia villosa var. villosa
Nyctaginaceae

Basket evening primrose
Oenothera deltoides ssp. deltoides
Onagraceae

Narrow-leaved cryptantha
Cryptantha angustifolia
Boraginaceae

Desert pot-herb, Dead man's fingers ^
Calandrinia ambigua
Portulacaceae

Booth's evening primrose
Camissonia boothii ssp. condensata
Onagraceae
[Named for William Beattie Booth (1804-1874)

Peirson's brown-eyed primrose
Camissonia claviformis ssp. peirsonii
Onagraceae

Desert chicory
Rafinesquia neomexicana
Asteraceae
[Named for Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, 1783-1840]

Four wing saltbush
Atriplex canescens var. canescens
Chenopodiaceae

Oligomeris, Lineleaf whitepuff
Oligomeris linifolia
Resedaceae

Spanish needles
Palafoxia arida var. arida
Asteraceae
[Named for José Rebolledo de Palafox y Melzi, 1776-1847]