Use this forum to discuss matters relating to Agave, Beschorneria, Furcraea, Hesperaloe, Hesperoyucca, Manfreda, Polianthes, Yucca and related species. This is where one posts unknown plant photos for ID help.
Gafoto wrote: ↑Thu Jan 20, 2022 10:09 pm
I've made a few trips this winter down to the Nevada/Utah border area to escape the cold and snow of Salt Lake City. My first trip down to Las Vegas after Christmas was cursed with bad weather. While driving through the Spring Mountains I spotted some agave stalks on the side of the road and pulled over to take a look. The people driving by seeing me wander around the hillside in sweatpants and running shoes early in the morning probably thought I was nuts. Par for the course in Las Vegas though.
These plants all had nice blueish green hues with a variety of spine sizes. They were growing just west of Mountain Springs, NV at about 5400 feet in broken limestone slabs.
I'd like to thank you for the chance to purchase the seeds of this type (and many others), when you kindly delivered the Agave titanota while you're staying in Tucson. These look great, and I will give them my highest level of TLC.
It’s snowing in Utah which means it’s time to head to the Mojave. My first stop was the Kinston Range in California. This is a really gorgeous range which I’ll need to visit again. There are unique utahensis here as well as the northern extent of Nolina parryi. The examples close to the road are impressive but specimens I could see high on north facing cliffs are absolutely colossal.
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Above is a perfect Yucca baccata x schidigera hybrid showing the trunking of schidigera with the longer blue foliage of baccata. A more typical schidigera:
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Monsters in the hills:
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The utahensis here are unique. In terms of size, spines and aggressive clumping habit these look like utahensis v. nevadensis:
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Not a single blue plant to be seen.
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The color is highly unusual though. These are a kind of odd electric green that is quite vivid compared to the muted pale green of eborispina plants. The spines have some interesting bronzed coloring as well.
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Utahensis v. eborispina and nevadensis both grow just across the (large) valley from the Kingston Range. I have yet to see a population like this one though.
Next a trip into the Resting Springs Range within sight of Pahrump. It’s pretty clear why you don’t hear about this habitat much, it requires an extensive hike across open desert, much like the Nopah Range to the south. No
crowds here!
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Once you get into the range it’s steep loose limestone all the way up.
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The plants here were stressed with only a few flowers this year. Fortunately there are lots of large plants to produce for the future.
Now I feel even worse that I didn’t find any of those Nopah pops. Did I either go up the wrong valley or not go high enough?
Edit: Below is the trail I took while looking for stalks. This was on the north-facing part of the range, but looking at google maps, I was probably in the wrong place. As you wrote, getting to the hills there required hiking through an endless desert floor, which I couldn't afford due to a tight schedule. I left Pahrump early in the morning, headed toward Nopah, and wanted to visit the Kingston Range to see those fab Nolinas, then drive through the Mojave National Preserve to explore the area around Granite Peak before checking in at Needles—all in one day, with plenty of bottled water and a few snacks I grabbed at a gas station.
Attachments
The path I followed...
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Looking back towards the road where I left my car
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Really this was the only spot where you could gain elevation almost immediately
jam wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2024 2:43 am
Now I feel even worse that I didn’t find any of those Nopah pops. Did I either go up the wrong valley or not go high enough?
A bit of both. The spot you’re referring to appears to be part of the Resting Springs Range. The Nopah Range is the one to the east and is either accessed from the pass to the SE or NE of where you were. There is no good access point.
This area is deceptive because the basins aren’t flat and aren’t at the same altitude from one side of a pass to another. The Ring Benchmark to the south of that pass tops out at 3255’ which is basically the very lowest elevation that saw utahensis in that region. They started at about 3200’ and go all the way up to the summit of the Nopah and Resting Springs Ranges. I know plants grow at least up to 7000’ in the Sheep Range and 8000’ in the Spring Mountains. I need to do more exploring to find their upper limits, I suspect there are higher populations but as you can see, they aren’t close to roads!
For most of the lower elevation locations that utahensis tend to grow in the Mojave they need rock slabs and drainages to accumulate the little water that falls and funnel more to their roots. They can’t handle open desert and growing with much competition.
Only at the very high “wet” elevations will you find them growing in more open gravelly soil. 5000-7000 seems to be a sweet spot with an abundance of plants. Once you get too high and wet they get outcompeted and shaded out by junipers.
I visited the Meadow Valley Range a couple days ago to check out more utahensis habitat. This range is within sight of the Sheeprocks and Pahranagat Range where the plants present as variety eborispina (or forma if prefer). I need to spend more time in those ranges but I wanted to see if the plants here leaned any particular direction.
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This is a pretty typical approach to a Nevada range with some desert wandering. Despite being in Joshua Tree country the dominant Yucca is schidigera. Some are quite old, as tall as 10 feet. This plant is a solid 5 feet wide.
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There was a plane crash here which means I hiked through a debris field for almost a mile. Parts are strewn everywhere and violently bent.
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I started to see plants at about 4000’ or so. These plants are mostly solitary with few clumping specimens. Almost all are a nice powder blue and similarly sized to other eborispina but the spines are less impressive.
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A robust flower from this one. So robust it almost became paniculate.
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These look fairly similar to plants I saw in the Mormon Mountains and bear little resemblance to the olive green eborispina plants to the west.
A couple extra plant photos. Some of these bear a resemblance to nevadensis but are generally larger and clump less.
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Some of these plants grow on north facing ledges that get no sun in the winter. I’ve seen this a few places but clearly most plants don’t tolerate the conditions.
Gafoto wrote: ↑Sat Jan 11, 2025 10:54 pm
A couple extra plant photos. Some of these bear a resemblance to nevadensis but are generally larger and clump less.
Some of these plants grow on north facing ledges that get no sun in the winter. I’ve seen this a few places but clearly most plants don’t tolerate the conditions.
For some of you these might be routine reports but for a person sitting in another continent who has never physically been to these areas, this is priceless information. Thanks for the effort Gafoto
Hiked out to Yant Flat today which is in the Pine Valley Mountains (not a great range name). This is where the Mojave, Great Basin and Colorado Plateau all meet. Lots of interesting plants comingling. Here the Agave utahensis grow in almost pure sand, a rarity in the rest of their range. Normally they’re tied to limestone soils. I have seen plants growing in sandstone soil in one other location.
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The population here is robust with large clusters of plants.
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Some of the clusters are obviously quite old.
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This one was almost six feet across and probably many many decades old.
Nice, that picture reminded me of checkerboard mesa in Zion National Park. I did a location search and sure enough, you were close by. I need to get back out in that area. When I traveled there 15 years ago I was much more into the geology and over looked most of the botany.
Meangreen94z wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2025 7:51 pm
Nice, that picture reminded me of checkerboard mesa in Zion National Park. I did a location search and sure enough, you were close by. I need to get back out in that area. When I traveled there 15 years ago I was much more into the geology and over looked most of the botany.
I’d guess it’s the very same layer of sandstone. We could actually see the West Temple in Zion from this area. Some sections are quite reminiscent of The Wave but not quite as colorful.
