Tag Archives: flowers

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Desert Star Flowers

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Desert Star Flowers
“Desert Star Flowers” — Tiny desert star (monoptilon bellioides) flowers, Death Valley.

When we think of a Death Valley “Superbloom” (the periodic eruption of astonishing numbers of wildflowers in wet years) most of us visualize gravel fans, hillsides, and washes full of impressive masses of wildflower color. In fact, that vision is not far off track. (I have posted and will post photographs of such things.) But you will see a fascinating world of smaller and more subtle flowers underfoot if you stop and look down.

I admit that I did not originally “look down” that much, but I learned from my wife, Patricia Emerson Mitchell, to stop and see these small treasures. The flowers in this photograph are desert (or Mojave) stars. The plants are so small that it is easy to miss them, and the flowers hug close to the ground. We found these while stopping for big fields of desert gold and sand verbena, and once we saw a few of the desert stars we realized that they were everywhere.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Wildflowers, South Death Valley

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Wildflowers, South Death Valley
“Wildflowers, South Death Valley” — A flower-covered landscape with a hill and the lower panamint Range.

Is this a so-called “super bloom” year in Death Valley? The term seems subjective, and there does not seem to be a clear demarcation between a really great bloom (which this season is certainly providing) and a super bloom. From what we saw in late February, I think there’s a case for calling 2026 one of the exceptional super bloom years.

There were lots of wildflowers where I photographed this scene at the southern end of the valley. Extensive fields of desert gold stretched across gravel fans and up hillsides. Pinkish sand verbena covered lower, sandy areas. (It is subtle, but if you look closely you can see the pink-purple color between the foreground yellow flowers and the shadowed hill.) Colorful clumps of purple phacelia were everywhere.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Desert Star Flowers

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Desert Star Flowers
“Desert Star Flowers” — Tiny desert star (monoptilon bellioides) flowers, Death Valley.

As I mentioned yesterday in the first post following our late-February visit to Death Valley, the main stories this time were wildflowers and Lake Manly. This post is about the former. We went to the place where I photographed these desert star (or Mojave star) flowers looking for sand verbena and desert gold, and we definitely found them. But there were lots of other flowers, too, including these tiny specimens.

I’ve always been aware of wildflowers — kind of hard to ignore them when they appear in large numbers and brilliant colors! But I’ve missed a lot about them, too, as I focused on other elements of the landscape. But my wife, Patricia Emerson Mitchell, wildflowers are her thing. And photographing with her taught me to look down and see things that I had missed before. This is especially true in the desert, where there are myriad tiny wildflowers underfoot in the most surprising places.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Autumn Flowers

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Autumn Flowers
“Autumn Flowers” — Autumn flowers scattered across a Yosemite Valley meadow.

The fall colors brought me to Yosemite Valley for a few days at the end of October. But autumn there isn’t just abut those colors — everything about the place is different during this season. The Valley seems to slow down and mellow out, and I sense that winter is just around the corner, even on a warm, sunny day like this one.

There’s a lot going on in this photograph, and it was a challenge to incorporate all of these elements. Right in front of the camera we see the golden-brown meadow, dotted with white flowers . The forest begins beyond that, with deciduous trees close to the Merced River and then large groves of conifers. In the distance, we see several of the famous Yosemite Valley granite cliffs, with details muted by haze and bright late-afternoon sun.

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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.