Wind Wolves, March 29, 2009, Part 1

My husband was eager to get out of the house yesterday, and I will do anything to get out of doing housework (in particular the laundry), so we packed up my camera and took a drive. It's a little late in the season for the wildflowers but we decided to take a chance and we headed out for the Wind Wolves Preserve.

Well, word must be getting out about one of our favorite "secret" retreats. Normally we'll be the only car there, or there will be no more than two others. Yesterday there were at least 15 other cars parked in the lot. In one way that's a little disappointing, but in another I guess it's a good thing for the Conservancy. I still can't help not liking it though. Yes, I'm a little selfish like that.

Anyway it was obvious that we missed the main wildflower display but we were fortunate enough that there were still quite a few around. Enough so that I took about 40 pictures! I tried picking out the better shots and I'm going to post some today and the rest tomorrow.

I put the name of the flowers where I knew them (or think I know them). As always, if anyone knows one that I don't please let me know so I can put the name to the flower.

One of my favorites, this is the Sky Lupine (lupinus nanus).

This, I believe, is Blue-Eyed Grass (sysyrinchium bellum).

Of course the Fiddleneck (amsinckia intermedia) was in abundance as usual.

Looking into a flower of the Fiddleneck.

This is one I haven't found the name for. It's some kind of what's commonly referred to as a "belly flower" because they are so tiny you really need to get down close to see them.

Here it is blown up. The flower is maybe about half the size of my pinkie fingernail.

Even the lichen patches on the rocks were colorful.

Here's another of my favorites, the poppy.

This is Purple Owl's Clover (castilleja exserta).
Here's another pretty lavender-blue flower that I can't identify.

And finally today's last rather faded flower. Try not to snicker too loudly. This is called a Blue Dick (dichelostemma capitatum). (Who comes up with some of these names!)

More tomorrow!

PS-I found a great website that lists the names of common western wildflowers. Go to www.westernwildflower.com . The plant index is on the left sidebar at the bottom. You can click on the name of the plant and it will show a picture. There are a bazillion listed plants and I didn't feel like going through each one right now to find the names of the flowers I didn't know. Feel free to do so yourself and then you can tell me what they are! ☺