Bunchgrass fall regrowth

Descrição:

With the late summer rains that we were fortunate to have received in good supply this year, the native perennial Bluebunch wheatgrass now sports nice clumpy blade tufts with a color closer to lawn grass than the more faded and taller and more loosely bunched blades of early summer. In short, the plants look markedly different now than they did four months ago at this location. There were only a relatively few clumps of these grasses here on these fully exposed harsh, steep, eroded, gravelly cliffs but in more favorable habitats, there were hundreds of plants like this one showing off their new growth beneath their now golden-dried erect culms and inflorescences.Growing here with the Bluebunch wheatgrass i.e. Pseudoroegneria spicata (synonyms include Agropyron spicatum and Elymus spicatus ) is Eriogonum brevicaule var. brevicaule (yellow flowers - it was also in bloom when I was last here over four months ago, common in appropriate habitats but one of my many favorites), Oenothera cespitosa subsp. cespitosa (more commonly we see subsp. marginata in our area, but the plants here while transitional into subsp. marginata seem to be closest to subsp. cespitosa), and a species of Boechera (Rockcress, most of which used to be classified under Arabis) vigorously growing its basal rosettes as they typically do at this time of year, possibly B. retrofracta or a hybrid.Oct. 18, 2014, lower Emigration Canyon, Salt Lake County, Utah, elev. approx. 5400 ft.