Visiting Northern Colorado--Devil's Backbone in Late Spring

Go out and notice the flowers!

Devil's Backbone Natural Area is a popular recreation (hiking, bird-watching) area just west of Loveland, Colorado.

Like any natural area--and parks and gardens and agricultural fields as well--what you see depends on when you go. I hiked there on a late May morning, preparing to lead a plant walk. 

Here are a few of the plants I saw:

Visiting Gibraltar part 2 -- A Fascinating Rock

I hadn’t grasped how small and densely populated Gibraltar is: 2.6 square miles with over 30,000 people.

The bay teemed with commerce. 

The residents are packed in along the coast. Since the land rises steeply and Gibraltar has water on three sides driving is tricky. In the residential areas, cars weave through narrow streets. The essential tourist trip to the Top of the Rock is one-way, winding and sometimes motionless, with lines of vans carrying tourists.

Visiting Gibraltar--At the End of the Mediterranean

Gibraltar! A name of adventure. I had read of it in many novels; now I was eager to see it for myself.  Not only was there The Rock, but I also found monkeys, coastal plants and caves.

Gibraltar is, in the words of Wikipedia a "monolithic limestone promontory."  On the southern edge of Europe, it protrudes south into the Mediterranean, creating the spot where the passage from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic is the narrrowest. 

Plant Story--Daphne, Attractive and Fragrant

Winter daphne, also called fragrant daphne, Daphne odora, is a flowering shrub from Asia. It is in the plant family, Thymelaeaceae, which, because most of its members are Old World, is not well known to Americans. You could call the Thymelaeaceae the daphne family or the spurge laurel family. Daphnes are planted as garden shrubs.

Visiting Northern Colorado--June Flowers at Carter Lake

fringed puccoon, Lithospermum incisum

Check out the flowers at Carter Lake this spring!

This blog post shows flowers from early June 2014--soon to be visible again!

 We drove to the south end of Carter Lake, southern Larimer County, Colorado, and took a casual walk in the campground. It was very quiet on a weekday morning.