Late Season in the Eddys

Leopard lilies flame above the dry skeletons of corn lily on the Parks Creek/Deadfall Lake trail section of the PCT.

Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale), bog lily, tall onion and yarrow still bloom in the fen fields at the top.

Prostrate yew, Pacific rhododendron, sneezeweed, cobra lilies and leopard lilies grace the flank of a spring on the Caldwell Lakes trail nearby.

Gentian bursts blue from the cobra lily fen.

Bistort maybe?  and Cirsium andersonii (Anderson's thistle) in the decomposed granite of the trail.

Sex In the Sagebrush

Back at Willow Creek Mountain, these two furry and charismatic megamoths, Hemileuca hera marcata, engaged in a long, meditative exchange of bodily fluids as they clung to their caterpillar host food Artemisia tridentata. I love the ferny black antennae, furry orange bodies and striking patterning of these beauties.

More delicate, but just as striking, the rare endemic Greene's Mariposa Lily at Little Shasta Meadows Botanical Area on Willow Creek Mountain.