Death Valley and Granite Mountain

Our first stops for desert bio were in the Death Valley and Granite Valley region, where I got to explore (not just drive through) mountains for the first time in my life. I had never been one for rock climbing or related activities so the chance to climb in locations like Artist’s Palette (whoever named that really missed out on ‘Painter’s Palette’ but that’s just me) was pretty awesome. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried when we first arrived at the Death Valley welcome centre and all that was visible in terms of plants were last years catseyes plants and dried up grasses. But the further in we got, the more I noticed that a lot of the green plants were actually just hiding in the shade of larger bushes and shrubs (later on we’d learn about the concept on nurse plants which explains this better).
On the topic of plants, a lot of what we saw in Death Valley were either Joshua Trees, Yucca, or a type of plants called halophytes, meaning they were adapted to and preferred the saline soils of Death Valley. Included in this category are the Atriplex (saltbush) genus and iodine bush, the latter of which we got to taste on our trip to Devil’s Cornfield, and it definitely tasted like the place it grew in: salty like seafood. Desert holly, another member of the saltbushes, was also prevalent in Death Valley and could be seen at various stages of its life cycle (fruiting, flowering).
At granite mountain, we visited a spring that was, for the most part, dried up on the surface. There was, however, evidence that water was close by, demonstrated by the presence of several water-loving plants like the willow. Here we found a wider selection of plants, from cheilanthoid ferns to succulents that looked like something found in a nursery back home, and we could begin taking observations in earnest.

Posted on March 25, 2018 03:35 AM by dtadelhelm