A Micro-Bloom

I pulled off for a pit stop at Bob Scott Summit and started seeing little tiny wildflowers everywhere. I looked around, hoping to see a superbloom, like so many were reporting this year, but the flowers were either somewhat far between, or—where covering the ground—were itsy bitsy.

Spring was just beginning on the second highest summit along Highway 50 in the Toiyabe Range of central Nevada, so I suspect that these flowers are just the start of what might be spectacular in places later this month, or even in June or early July.

I don't have the names of all these flowers, but the first photo features locoweed (Astragulus sp), and the second photo is of Phlox (Phlox sp.).

Here, a few sunflower-family plants are starting to come up; these are either Wyethia or Balsamorhiza of some type (likely the former, I think). I don't know what the little blue flowers are, but they are beautiful.

And here is some locoweed again, with a few white flowers, possibly Eriogonum, and more unknown tiny yellow flowers.

Barbecue down!

In a few of these shots, I got really low to the ground to try to make it look like some of the more spectacular superbloom-type photos, wherein you can see flowers up close going off into the distance...

...but that didn't really work for me, and getting a good focus was problematic.

Nevertheless, I persisted, and got some good photos of several different types of wildflowers.

Too bad I won't be passing this way until sometime in July. Perhaps the lupine, which has been forming thick fields up on top of Austin Summit ever since a burn in the 1980s, will be blooming then, but the flowers at this lower pass will most likely be done.