Image: Sand blossoms, Linanthus parryae

Description: sand blossoms, Linanthus parryae, California, Glass Mountain, Benton Crossing Road, Owens Valley drainage, elevation 2228 m (7310 ft). One of those amazing desert annuals whose flowers outweigh the rest of the plant! Any of you familiar with this species will understand my astonishment at finding a healthy population of it this far north, and at apparent record-high elevation. Researching further, it has been found slightly farther north, in the Benton area of Mono County, but not this high. The population here was entirely of the white flowered form. The species also has a gorgeous blue-flowered form, and sometimes the two grow mixed, for example in Indian Wells Valley of the western Mojave Desert. Other than this narrow northward extension up the Owens Valley corridor into the Great Basin, the species is endemic to the western Mojave Desert, southern Sierra Nevada, southern San Joaquin Valley, and adjacent mountain foothills of southern California, mostly in sandy granitic soils below about 2000 meters (6600 feet) elevation.
Title: Sand blossoms, Linanthus parryae
Credit: sand blossoms, Linanthus parryae
Author: Jim Morefield from Nevada, USA
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
License: CC BY-SA 2.0
License Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
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