'Tis the season

The Sonoran desert's wildflower season is just out of the starting gate. My previous post mentioned one of the wildflower hotspots in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Another is along the trails on the southeastern aspect of Granite Mountain in the northeastern preserve. I scouted the area yesterday and see promise for a good season here as well. I also found a new taxon for the preserve's flora. The bad news is that it's a non-native (but then I'm of primarily British heritage myself so can't complain too much).

I returned to the trailhead along Powerline Road #2 underneath a power line from the Cholla generating station and once again encountered a phenomenon peculiar to plants under powerlines. One creosote bush had three (maybe four) of the astonishing number of insect species (sixteen!) that produce galls on creosote bushes. As I was using my hands to arrange the galls, I was hit with repeated static shocks from the induced current generated by the electromagnetic field of the 345kV lines above us.

Posted on Φεβρουάριος 25, 2017 1244 ΠΜ by stevejones