April showers bring about May flowers.

To those who know and those who don't, last year I crashed 4 government vehicles, simultaneously. When I texted my botany friend Becca about the incident she replied "that's physically impossible." I replied, "I'm Amy, nothing is impossible." My reputation then grew around the office. I was no longer the intern working for Doug, but rather the infamous record breaking truck destroyer. Nicknames such as "Crash", "Bumper", and "Full-throddle" have followed me through to the following year where my newest name is "hot-rod". I consider it a promotion.

Moral of the story is I was surprised that they gave me keys this year.

My anxiety aside, I was excited to head out into the field for my first real solo field day. This year I'm about a month and half earlier than last year's start date and the plant communities are totally different. Plants that were nothing but sun burnt twigs, with trace morphological characteristics in tact, were now in full flower with color and all!

Here are some photos of the Upper and Lower Table Rocks.

 Calochortus tolmiei

 Ceanothus cuneatus

 Delphinium nuttallianum

 

Collinsia linearis

Fritillaria recurva

 Lasthenia californica

 Vernal pools on top of Table Rock. Lasthenia californica, Trifolium wildenovii, and Trifolium depauperatum.

Balsamorhiza deltoidea

  

 Camassia leichtlinii

 Ceanothus cuneatus

 Collinsia sparsiflora

 Seed of Erythronium hendersonii

 Plectritus congesta

 Lasthenia californica feilds

 Up close and personal with the Plectritis congesta

Trifolium wildenovii at Antelope road

This is actually at a different site in White City. It's on an obscure and random BLM plot of land with intermittent streams. The vernal pools here were covered in Mimulus guttatus.

If you look close you can see some Allium popping up ready to open and mixed in is an interesting Borage Plagiobothrys glyptocarpus. Or at least that's what I keyed it out to be. It's found in vernal pools and has distinct nutlets... yea. had to look hard at the nutlets.