BOX CANYON ROAD, MECCA HILLS, RIVERSIDE COUNTY
JANUARY 2012 PAGE ONE
Photographs by Michael Charters
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Thanks to some late season rainfall last year, the fairly localized area along Box Canyon Road through the Mecca Hills is currently exhibiting an unusually diverse though generally quite sparse bloom, nothing that would make anyone gasp, or anyone other than botanists even more than mildly excited, but nevertheless not typical for the month of January. Most of the photographs shown here were taken in an area between the Coachella Canal and Painted Canyon Road. In a year that is shaping up to be a pretty poor one, we wildflower photographers will have to be looking long and hard to find places that have much of a floristic display. An asterisk next to the common name indicates a non-native species, and an upside down V indicates a taxon I had never encountered before. Thanks much to RT Hawke for having located the bloom in this area, which in a good rainfall year is amazing, and thanks to Tommy Stoughton for the identification of the four-wing saltbush. |
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California sun cup Eulobus californicus (= Camissonia californica) Onagraceae |
Rock daisy Perityle emoryi Asteraceae |
Red-stem filaree * Erodium cicutarium Geraniaceae |
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Thomas's buckwheat Eriogonum thomasii Polygonaceae |
Desert trumpet Eriogonum inflatum Polygonaceae |
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Desert mistletoe Phoradendron californicum Viscaceae |
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Narrow-leaved cryptantha Cryptantha angustifolia Boraginaceae |
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Sand blazing star Mentzelia involucrata Loasaceae |
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Creosote bush Larrea tridentata Zygophyllaceae |
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Thick-leaved ground cherry Physalis crassifolia Solanaceae |
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