Tag Archives: Botany

Last year I thought there would be few changes or additions needed in this year’s edition of Plants of the Bodie Hills. Surely, after all these years, it should be very nearly finished. Wrong! Local floras like this are never, ever complete or finished, but over time, if there are no deadlines, they can become gradually more complete, even during periods of drought.

Plants of the Bodie Hills, March 2022 Edition, is now available on the Downloads page (a free PDF). It includes quite a few additions, corrections, nomenclatural updates, and refinements to the keys.

• New or confirmed additions to the flora include Artemisia dracunculus, Tricardia watsonii, Orthocarpus luteus, Erythranthe floribunda, Plantago major, Toxicoscordion venenosum, Danthonia unispicata, and an unidentified Aphyllon. Three more additions that are barely on the edge of the Bodie Hills, since they are in the drawdown zone on the east edge of Bridgeport Reservoir, are Potentilla newberryi, Potentilla rivalis, and Crypsis alopecuroides. I’ve found a few of these myself, but most of these additions are the result of explorations in the field by others, particularly Ann Howald, and others posting observations on iNaturalist.
• Taxonomy for the Order Boraginales has been updated: instead of the whole order being dumped into one very large and diverse Family Boraginaceae (in the broad sense), a newer 11-family system has been proposed by the Boraginales Working Group, and numerous updates to genera and species in western North America have been made by the Amsinckiinae Working Group. These changes have been adopted by the Jepson eFlora. Three of the 11 families are known to occur in the Bodie Hills: Boraginaceae (in the strict sense), Hydrophyllaceae, and Namaceae. A fourth, Heliotropiaceae, is likely to turn up one of these days.
• Some of the keys have been improved (hopefully) by the addition of more distinguishing characters, or by the addition of species that are not in the Bodie Hills, but may be familiar to readers and are easily confused with species that do occur here.
• The table listing Special-Status plants has been updated based on the most recent sources. There is still only one California State-listed Rare plant in the Bodie Hills: Long Valley milkvetch (Astragalus johannis‐howellii). No federally-listed plants occur here.

As before, you have two options for how to use this document: 1) load the PDF onto a mobile device or 2) print the PDF yourself.

1. Using a mobile device: I’ve found the PDF to be quite readable on my iPhone (in the Books app), although it helps that I’m near-sighted. It’s even easier to read on an iPad, other tablet, or laptop.
2. Printing the PDF: You can print the PDF yourself or at a local print shop, and I highly recommend printing it 2-sided to conserve paper and reduce bulk and weight in the field. A comb or spiral binding, binder clip, or other binding will hold it together.

Your additions, corrections, comments, or questions are always welcome.

Here are some interesting observations I made in 2021 while roaming the Bodie Hills:

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