Red Cloud Buttes

A year ago today I stopped to photograph the Red Cloud Buttes at Fort Robinson State Park in western Nebraska.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

Another white

At the top of Scott’s Bluff in western Nebraska on May 29th I noticed some plants that formed low mounds of white flowers, like the one above that has some other plants growing up inside it. How rude.

I later learned that the white-flowered plants are desert sandwort (Eremogone hookeri). Below is closeup of some of the flowers densely packed into one of those mounds.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Standing milk-vetch flowers

At the top of Scott’s Bluff in western Nebraska on May 29th I saw flowers of what I thought was standing milk-vetch, Astragalus laxmannii. A comment two years later from Ed Lanka makes me think the flowers were actually hoary vetchling, Lathyrus polymorphus.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Cryptantha thyrsiflora

Atop Scott’s Bluff in western Nebraska I saw some smallish white flowers that later got identified as Cryptantha thyrsiflora. Vernacular names for the plant include calcareous cryptantha, calcareous popcornflower, limestone cat’s eye, mountain cat’s eye, and miner’s candle. By the time I took this picture on May 29th, many of the flowers had already wilted, as you can see.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

A tiny fly on narrowleaf penstemon flowers

It was late in the afternoon on May 28th and the wind had picked up at the top of Scott’s Bluff National Monument in western Nebraska. Concentrating on the tiny fly that became my subject once I noticed it, I had to let most of the flowers fade out of focus in order for the fly to stay sharp. The flowers are Penstemon angustifolius, called narrowleaf penstemon or narrowleaf beardtongue. Call the photographer Nimbletongue Beardface and you might not be far wrong.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Scott’s Bluff in the morning

At the top of Scott’s Bluff on May 28th, the late-afternoon wind had taken to blowing so hard that we drove back down to get away from it, resolving to come again the following day before continuing north through Nebraska to South Dakota. Here’s the prairie view that greeted us that next morning as we looked west from the western fringe of the town. Don’t you wish you had one of these 800-foot-tall geological fortresses conveniently sitting at the edge of your town so you could play on and around it whenever you wanted to?

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Sphaeralcea coccinea

Remember Nebraska’s Chimney Rock? When we visited on May 28th, I photographed these flowers of Sphaeralcea coccinea, called scarlet globemallow, caliche globemallow, and copper mallow. The article linked to in the previous sentence points out that “While on the course of his expedition, near the Marias River [in what is now Montana], Meriwether Lewis collected a specimen of this species.” In fact it grows across much of the western United States. I’ve seen scarlet globemallow in Texas’s hot Trans-Pecos region, so the species tolerates a broad range of temperatures.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Death camas

On May 29th atop Scott’s Bluff National Monument in Nebraska I found no shortage of Zigandenus venenosus flowers. You can recognize that the scientific species name means ‘poisonous.’ The common name death camas is no exaggeration, as people have died from eating the various species of this pretty wildflower. And speaking of the genus Zigadenus, a few of you may remember that I belatedly showed an Austin species back in 2015.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Western wild rose

How about this flower I found on a western wild rose bush (Rosa woodsii) near the top of Scott’s Bluff National Monument in far western Nebraska on May 29th?

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Nebraska like Antarctica

Okay, there are times when Nebraska gets really cold, but not that cold. No, it’s not temperature I have in mind: don’t you think that the outline of these lichens is like that of Antarctica? Following in the footsteps of Amundsen, I strode to the top of Scott’s Bluff National Monument on May 28th and metaphorically planted my photographic flag there.

If you’d like a much closer look at a portion of these lichens, click to expand this excerpt:

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman