Some pictures from City Creek

First some views of the city from the hillside. Jean Luc shows up in the first one. The second one was that trail that went straight up the hillside and met up with a dirt road.



Next some familiar flowers:
First up, blue flax (incidentally, this IS European flax; it was imported and spread)


This is purple aster, closely related to flea bane.


Here's some crimson globemallow. It looks crimson just as it's starting to bloom, but the flowers are really more orange. At least, all of them that I've seen are. This is an old friend, first encountered at a rest area on the way to Littlewood Reservoir.


This is from a willow. I'm used to these as being small, spindly bushes. Because I usually see them in places where they don't get much water and/or sun. I've only recently discovered that they can be HUGE under the right conditions. I also had never seen them in bloom before. Oh, these make good hotdog roasting sticks if you're camping. (I wouldn't recommend them if you're allergic to aspirin, however)


Last familiar one (to me, anyway): Snakegrass. That's the common name I know, which is what Spencer told me when we encountered it once years ago. It has other names, which I'm not going to look up just now.


Onto the new ones. This one has been frustrating me. It looks a LOT like some carnations my mom had in her flower garden, but wild carnation seems to have a huge...pod right beneath the flower. I haven't been able to find a match. Maybe someone's tame carnation got out and started spreading. *shrugs* There were quite a few of them.


In case you're wondering, the background is my camera bag. The camera would not focus on this one without encouragement, and the sun still glares off of it something awful. I haven't had a chance to look this one up, but at first glance, the flowers make me think it's in the pea family. *shrugs*


Last, a pretty yellow one that I THINK I've looked up once before, but I'm going to leave it for now.