I recently spent three nights car camping with a couple of good friends/colleagues at the quite pleasant Dimond O National Forest campground just outside the western edge of Yosemite. About this time every year we head up to Yosemite for a couple of killer day hikes, and this time was no different. Something new for me was taking a little time to ramble around a small bit of Ackerson Meadow, a big chunk of which was added to Yosemite NP not long ago, and some of which spans Evergreen Rd. on the way to Dimond O.
Right now views of the meadow are dominated by the vibrant colors of blue-violet lupines, emerald bracken ferns, and golden yellow madias. But if you seek out the edges of damp depressions and look down at the ground, you'll see some amazing itsy flowers. I took a few pictures with my phone.
The first photo features the aptly named yellow-lipped pansy monkeyflower (Diplacus pulchellus) as well as Downingia montana (the latter was I think misidentified by my Seek app as a different downingia... Seek is amazing, but is often overconfident in its plant IDs... then again, all of my plant IDs are provisional!). The second shot is more of the downingia, a splendid little flower. Finally, a not very good shot of another tiny monkey, Erythranthe filicaulis.
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