the desert trip - day three

we started out with a hike - searching for lamanite arch. why? not sure. this was the trip of me taking pictures of every flower i could so that when we got back to slc we could look them up in our wildflowers of the desert book. so be prepared for quite a few flowers over the next few posts.

this, however, is not a flower:

what it is is not known to me. the catepillars seem to be creating multiple layers of webbing and so perhaps this is something like a multi-plex coccoon? anyone know?

this is, though. in fact, it is one of my favorites: sand verbena. one of the most sweetly and tantalizingly fragrant blooms in the desert, i feel.


though the grape holly is not far behind on the fragrance scale, not quite as sweet, but still amazing. the grape holly was blooming like CRAZY this year:


and an uncategorized bloom (i still have to get the book out and find its name):


and this is where we stopped looking for lamanite arch:


nine miles, or so, in with no arch in sight and wishing that we had brought the map with us, we decided to stop. besides, sop had something he wanted to ask me.

tbc...