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Life in death valley: a tide of blossoms, in the wake of heavy storms, has grown into a big attraction
Natural History, June, 2005 by Erin Espelie
Deadly rains brought floods and mudslides to Southern California this past year, but the rains have offered amends: a profusion of spring wildflowers. In Death Valley National Park the bloom has been particularly spectacular. The predominant flower, a yellow beauty called desert sunflower, dressed up what is, more commonly, a relatively barren valley floor. The flowers created a kind of golden alluvium, marking where courses of rainwater had surged down the mountains just months before. The floral wash converged into a giant pool on the basin's floor--a sight to behold [see photograph at upper right].
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Death Valley usually gets, at most, two inches of" rain a year. From June 2004 until June 2005 about six and a half inches fell, reviving dormant flower seeds and leaving small lakes--where desert pupfish are having a boom year--in place of dry, salty flats. The flowers in turn have lured tourists in record numbers. Cars, RVs, and motorcycles will probably continue to line the roads through early June.
Yet visitors who venture into some of the sparser flower patches may be the most rewarded. There, among dry shrubs and rocks, are the more unusual buds. The chia, for instance, has exquisite flowers that look like mini-orchids unfolding from a pointed purple sphere. The desert five-spot has delicate petals that blow open in a breeze to reveal five blushing circles inside. [See photographs at lower right.]
The rain also brought with it a parasite known as toothed dodder [see photograph at left]. Its orange tendrils creep across the ground until they find a plant. Then the dodder snakes around its new host, grows into a large stringy mass, and ultimately chokes and kills its lifeline. Yet even the toothed dodder adds a bright color to this year's striking and unusual spring palette in Death Valley.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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