Hi. Can anyone identify this plant? I go to Death Valley a lot and take lots of pictures. In the cooler times there can be a lot of flowers around and I take pictures of them too. I found this one in the Panamint Mountains just west of Death Valley proper at about 8000 feet in late June. It was just SO WEIRD and no one I've shown these pictures to has a clue. In all the time I've spent in Death Valley I've only seen this one individual plant of this kind. The plant looks to me like it wants to eat something. On the left edge of the picture about 1/3 of the way up you see two open -- um, ah, er -- "flowers". It looks to my non-botanical eyes like all the rest of the "flowers" have already had a meal. Thanks, Jeff B at Home
Foliage is off for both Physaria and Salazaria. Looks leguminous to me, so I checked out "Astragalus" and Death Valley on the Calphotos search page. Came up with Astragalus gilmannii. This is listed as a rare plant in California.
Thank you very much. Mystery (to me) solved. >> The plant looks to me like it wants to eat something. On the left edge of the picture about >> 1/3 of the way up you see two open -- um, ah, er -- "flowers". It looks to my non-botanical >> eyes like all the rest of the "flowers" have already had a meal. Well my "non-botanical eyes" got it VERY wrong. What looked to me like some sort of grotesque pod for eating bugs was just the opposite. Those are food producers, not food traps. They are pea pods! Sometimes my ignorance amuses even me. :-) If I'd looked a little closer at my own picture I *might* have seen it as below.... Snug as a pea in a Astragalus Gilmanii pod. Well, maybe not TOO snug as you can see in the lower right were a "pea" has flown the coop (love mixed metaphors) and is busy planting itself. Thanks again, Jeff B at Home