BOTANICAL & OTHER EXPLORATIONS

Hello,

I am pleased to announce that the Flora of Nevada is on track to be submitted for publication later this year. I would still love to add contributor treatments to the manual, so please reach out at floraofnevada@gmail.com if at all interest. A variety of larger and ecologically important and evolutionarily diverse taxa remain to be treated–in fact, these are essentially many of the only remaining groups to be treated.

I continue to post youtube videos treating the flora and landscapes of Nevada (and beyond), and my aim is to improve the production quality of these tapes through utilization of superior technology in 2024.

https://www.youtube.com/@floraofnevada6493

Like and/or subscribe, if inclined.

After a premature end to field season 22 with a surprise surgery, I was able to extensively botanize Nevada during the first half of 2023 with all of the maritime precipitation that fell. These two phenomena have contributed to a bit of a slowdown in the actual writing of the Flora of Nevada, but the writing has nevertheless proceeded steadily in the background (and foreground when possible) and we are getting close to 150,000 words. More contributors continue to come on board, and the list of needed treatments below is essentially still intact–please get in touch if interested! Or ask me about ANY genus and there is about a 15-20% chance that it is still available for treatment.

Come hear about the work at Botany 2023 if attending and interested. My next highest priority as regards this work is to secure a publisher–the first one solicited had no qualms about the worthiness of the work but simply reported they are not publishing new field guides any longer.

3-4 new manuscripts will likely be published this year and will be reported here when so–two treat the genus Stellaria, and the other two treat the flora of Central Asia.

Shaky wilderness videos continue to be posted on the Flora of Nevada YouTube page.

If you stumble across this site and are an expert in any of the following groups, or love Nevada and want to contribute to its botany, or know a scholar with interest in any of these groups and more than a passing interest in the region, then please do let me know! The Flora could be ready sooner than later if anyone could treat:

Allium

Astragalus

Boechera

Carex

Castilleja

Cymopterus

Draba

Erigeron

Ivesia

Lomatium

Mentzelia

Phacelia

Poa/many large genera of Poaceae still

Potentilla

(revised 5 Feb. 2023)

Most all other genera have been treated/are being treated presently. We are getting towards the end!

Although I have taken on many new projects this year, the Flora of Nevada field identification manual work proceeds smoothly in the background. A manuscript submission in late 2023 is beginning to seem possible. Very soon, I will post here a number of generic treatments that I would be interested in still outsourcing. More shortly.

The work surpassed 100,000 words last night and is getting deeper into the later stages. I expect submission for publication in 2023. I will be rigorously field-testing the draft through the coming season, to mark a third robust field season in the region.

I am still in the process of catching up on and posting videos from the spring–or what I hoped to be spring, but which brought little life to the landscape. Some of these are generating many views, due to the relevance of the topic to many millions of people in the southwestern United States.

During one of these excursions, I encountered the largest herd of desert bighorns I have ever met (only some seen here):

Although I have been delving more and more deeply into Mojave and Great Basin work in recent times, investigations into worldwide starworts are continuous and occasionally result in published reports:

https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajb2.1650

Spring did not really come this year to the Mojave, unless you happened to occupy a deeper wash with slightly superior moisture levels to the rest of the landscape. Before it became too hot in the lower deserts, and as many plants struggled to develop even just their leaves this year in the face of severe drought and concomitantly severe herbivory, I was able to complete a stunningly beautiful walk across a significant portion of the Lake Mead northshore region. To better botany ahead in the North. I’m already finding amazing things at the Mojave-Great Basin transition.

During July of 2020, I likely became the first person to accomplish a yo-yo traverse of the Snake Range of east-central Nevada. The expedition is documented in five parts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-9kkYWfA8A

The incredible drought of the past year has been mitigated with recent storms. Snow swept the lower deserts in a recent event: