New Mexico trip - Oct. 2008 The Chihuahuan desert, White Sands, Organ and Sacramento Mountains
- plant
Broom Snakeweed; Guiterrezia sarothrae
Aster Family White Sands National Monument Oct. 1, 2008 This plant was growing outside the visitor center. It is nice to have labeled plants every once in a while! :) I don't have to work as hard to identify them!
on Oct. 1. This was our first view of the beautiful white dunes. Plants grow at the edges of the dunes, slowing their advance for a while. Some of the more hardy and tenacious plants can grow roots up to 30 feet to reach water. map...
Hartweg's Evening Primrose; Calylophus hartwegii
Evening Primrose Family White Sands NM Oct. 1, 2008
sp. White Sands National Monument Oct. 1, 2008 This photo does not do this huge wasp justice! She was about 2 inches long! The female wasps sting and paralyze tarantulas, drag them into a burrow and then lay their eggs on them. The wasp larvae eat the spiders.
One of the fun activities at White Sands is to run down the huge dunes. There are signs telling visitors not to remove sand from the park, but it is nearly impossible when you have shoes or boots full of it. We were amazed at how much white sand we saw in our hotel parking lot in Alamogordo! I even found white sand in my suitcase! I collect sand from different areas of the country, I didn't want to illegally take sand from the park, but any that was stuck to my boot soles was fair game! ;) Photo by Ken Light
Threadleaf Broomweed; Gutierrezia microcephala
Aster Family El Paso, TX Sept. 30, 2008 This was the first plant I saw when we got off the plane in El Paso. It was growing along the highways all the way to Alamogordo. Being a "DYC" ("#*! Yellow Composite), it is a great nectar source for insects. There are thousands of tiny flowers on these plants.
Oak-leaf Thornapple; Datura querifolia
Nightshade Family White Sands NM Oct. 1, 2008 I found this plant growing at the edge of the White Sands Visitor Center. It is a smaller-flowered relative of the beautiful Sacred Datura, so I would imagine it is poisonous too. Two of the spiky seedpods are visible at the top of the photo, slightly out of focus.
We enjoyed watching the Stink beetles walking on the sand in the trails and on the dunes. They left interesting little tracks in the sand. (see following photo)
This Stink beetle is in its spray position. My husband found out about these beetles the hard way when he got blasted by one when he tried to pick it up. I had learned about them by watching the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet on TV! :) A few days later I was downwind of one of these beetles when it sprayed. Whew, did it stink!
Here I am standing by a "pedestal", a mound of sand held in place by the roots of this Skunkbush. Photo by Ken Light
Threadleaf Groundsel; Senecio douglasii longilobus
Aster Family White Sands National Monument Oct. 1, 2008 I'm so lucky to be married to a very patient husband! This was another of those, "Stop! There's a plant I don't have a picture of yet!" wildflowers. He pulls over and I jump out and snap a few photos. It turned out to be a "Two-fer" stop, I got another new wildflower there also!
Aster Family Alamogordo, NM Sept. 30, 2008 This is one of the plants I suffered for to photograph, I pulled Sandburs out of my socks and shoelaces for 5 minutes when I got back in the car! I also had to lean over a barbedwire fence to get this picture. Oh, the sacrifices I sometimes have to make for my flower photos! :)
Aster Machaeranthera spp. Here is a close-up of the previous plant.
Red Harvester Ant; Pogonomyrmex
spp. White Sands NM Oct. 1, 2008 Kenny and I enjoyed watching the Harvester Ants carrying leaves or insect parts into their nest and seeing how they remove large (for them anyway!) pebbles from inside the nest with their mandibles. Can you imagine carrying a boulder half-mile or so with your teeth?! Some ants would clear a large circle around their nest, no grass or plants were allowed to grow. See following photo...
Hartweg's Evening Primrose; Calylophus hartwegii
Evening Primrose Family White Sands NM Oct. 1, 2008 This pretty yellow flowers add splashes of color on the bright white sand. I was glad we got to the park early, many desert flowers, including this one, close in the heat of the afternoon. Hartweg's Evening Primrose likes to grow in gypsum soil, so it should be very happy at White Sands!
It was fun to look for animal tracks in the sand. We saw tracks from beetles, lizards, jumping mice and foxes.
The picnic area at White Sands NM was the strangest we'd ever eaten at. There were no trees, plants, not even a blade of grass! The corrugated metal covering provided a bit of shade but they were quite hot to touch.
Sacramento Mountains and Chihuahuan desert
Kenny and I took advantage of my fall break from school and went to southern New Mexico from Sept. 30 - Oct. 8, 2008. We picked a perfect time to go there, the summer rains had made the desert explode in plant growth! I documented nearly 150 different wildflowers in that week! The Sacramento Mountains (9,000 feet) can be seen in the background in this photo, they make up the eastern rim of the Tularosa Basin. White Sands National Monument, near Alamogordo (which means "fat Cottonwood" in Spanish, by the way), is just a few miles away. The geology of this area is incredible. Much of this gallery will discuss the white sands, the valley and the numerous mountain ranges. map...
Tohoka Daisy; Tansyleaf Spine Aster; Machaeranthera tanacetifolia
White Sands National Monument, NM Oct. 1, 2008 Asters can be a pain to identify because there are so many different kinds. The leaves of this plant don't match the type of aster that was in the park plant list. This one had straight leaves, the ones in my ID books and in university plant webites have fernlike leaves. I just have to trust the National Park Service botanists!
Bleached Earless Lizard; Holbrookia maculata ruthveni
White Sands National Monument Oct. 1, 2008 I nearly missed this little guy, he (or maybe she) was very well camouflaged against the white sand. I wish the brown grass had not been in the way, but nature is not always perfect! These lizards are endemic to White Sands, a few miles up the valley a darker species of this lizard lives in the black lava fields.
at White Sands National Monument. The small, coarse grains of sand originated several miles away in the gypsum beds of Lake Lucero. The lake is seasonal, it has water only after large rain. Gypsum forms as water brings minerals from the distant San Andreas mountain range. Wind breaks up the gypsum and blows it eastward forming the beautiful dune beds.
This fossilized tree root shows that sometimes fossils can develop relatively quickly. The minerals from the gypsum sand replace the wood of the buried plants forming a fossil.
Visitors at White Sands can rent plastic "dune disks" to slide down the high dunes. The coarse sand is not quite as slick as snow, but the riders had a lot of fun.