DUMP WASH/BORREGO BADLANDS, ANZA-BORREGO DESERT STATE PARK
FEBRUARY 2009 PAGE ONE




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


   
Woolly plantain
Plantago ovata
Plantaginaceae


 
Broad-fruited pectocarya
Pectocarya platycarpa
Boraginaceae


       
   
Spectacle pod
Dithyrea californica
Brassicaceae
   
    Desert dicoria, Twinbugs
Dicoria canescens
Asteraceae


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


 
 
Creosote bush
Larrea tridentata
Zygophyllaceae
 
 
Broadleaf gilia
Gilia latifolia
Polemoniaceae
Ribbed cryptantha
Cryptantha costata
Boraginaceae
Booth's evening primrose
Camissonia boothii ssp. condensata
Onagraceae
Peirson's brown-eyed primrose
Camissonia claviformis ssp. peirsonii
Onagraceae


 
Desert chicory
Rafinesquia neomexicana
Asteraceae
 
Four wing saltbush
Atriplex canescens var. canescens
Chenopodiaceae


   
Oligomeris, Lineleaf whitepuff
Oligomeris linifolia
Resedaceae
 
Spanish needles
Palafoxia arida var. arida
Asteraceae


PHOTO GALLERIES
INDEX
CALFLORA.NET PAGE TWO
OF TWO
CALIFORNIA PLANT NAMES: LATIN AND GREEK MEANINGS AND DERIVATIONS