Plant list | Plants of the Bodie Hills

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Plants of Hot Springs Valley (2024 Update)

Posted on April 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

It’s past time for an update to the vascular plant checklist for Hot Springs Valley and Grover Hot Springs State Park, in Alpine County, California. Since the last version of the checklist (November 2018), several plants have been added to the list, based on observations posted to iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=127882). The list now includes 348 “minimum rank” taxa (distinct species, subspecies, or varieties) in 64 plant families. The March 2024 version of this checklist (a free 8-page PDF) is available on the Downloads Page.

Some of these additions are a result of disturbance and habitat changes caused by the Tamarack Fire, which burned much of the valley (but not the hot springs, meadows, or campground) in July 2021. Below are two views of the Tamarack Fire perimeter. The first shows the burned area in relation to all of Hot Springs Valley, including Grover Hot Springs State Park; the second is zoomed in to the fire perimeter around the meadows within the main part of the park.

Recent additions to the list of plants here include:

Argemone munita (Flatbud Prickly Poppy)
Eriogonum umbellatum (Sulfur Buckwheat)
Heterotheca orovillosa (Hairy Goldenaster)
Mimetanthe pilosa (False Monkeyflower)
Nicotiana attenuata (Coyote Tobacco)
Ranunculus alismifolius Plantainleaf Buttercup)
Solanum xanti (Purple Nightshade)

It will be interesting to continue exploring burned areas and monitoring habitat recovery this year and for some years to come. I was impressed with the abundance of native flora growing in some burned areas (especially near moisture) during my last visit, in June 2023.

*Argemone munita* (Flatbud Prickly Poppy)

Data source for California Fire Perimeters (updated annually): https://gis.data.ca.gov/datasets/CALFIRE-Forestry::california-fire-perimeters-all-1/explore

Plants of Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park: a Preliminary Checklist

Posted on May 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

Looking west from Berlin (Ione Valley and the Paradise Range)

Over the last couple of springs and summers I’ve made an effort to become more familiar with the flora of the central and western Great Basin, east of Mono County and the Bodie Hills. Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park, in northwestern Nye County, has become a favorite destination. Searching the internet for information about the flora of this area turned up very little, so that was reason enough to focus on compiling an initial catalog of plant life in this very pleasant and remote unit of the Nevada State Parks.

Trail near the campground

Berlin-Ichthyosaur sits at about the 7,000-foot elevation on the west slope of the Shoshone Range, overlooking Ione Valley. The park features the remains of Berlin (a mining town active from about 1863 to 1911), a large fossil shelter housing in-situ fossilized remains of several Ichthyosaurs (the Nevada state fossil), a campground, several trails, quiet solitude, and much plant and animal life to explore.

Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park

Were it not for the pandemic, I would be there again this month, looking for additions and corrections to my list. Later this year, I hope. For now, though, there’s enough in the list to make it worth sharing as a first-draft work-in-progress. I hope readers will find it interesting, take it as a challenge to find more species, and contact me with corrections, additions, or comments. You can find this first edition (a 2-page PDF) and any subsequent revisions on my Downloads page.

Photographs of many of the plants in this list (and a few other life forms) can be found here, on iNaturalist.