Death Valley Wildflowers

at eight in the morning on a weekday visitors center at death valley national park is already a buzz ranger kari baldino is handing out maps we got more business are we going to do with a comeback around ten o'clock the people back to the doors and what's the flowers bordeaux i see flowers is worth the rest of an hour's worth of hours and the answer is to go outside indeed there is a profusion of flowers along the valley and hills of the park miles of boisterous blooms called desert golds sports a purple for sale yet whispers of gravel ghosts there's slim stemmed flowers with a proof of why on top so they seem to hover in the air or lazy carpets of little blossoms called purple mat and giggles of teeny white popcorn flowers death valley park roads are lined with visitors from around the world just about everyone's taking photos barbara douglas of la wades into a patch of desert gold this is a once in a lifetime

experience to be here after the rain faster the big bloom is also drawing excited botanists death valley is a botanist dream the park most more than a thousand plants one sixth of all those found in california eileen anderson of the california native plant society meals over a lavender desert verbena oh it has a wonderful fragrance kind of powdery and perfume me anderson meets up with park ranger vickie wolfe as they stroll up a lot of old says it's not just the sheer number of flowers that caught her attention she points out mr javier a yellow member of a snapdragon family that usually about an inch tall they share i've seen them up to eight inches tall with five branches coming out with multiple flower heads and everything is just gigantic death valley average is two inches of rain a year since

july it's already received six eileen anderson says all that rain means wildflower seeds that have lain dormant for years are now bursting forth in these desert lands are particularly good at being able to live in scene four for literally decades deeply the desert seats from a waxy coating over them that provides insulation from losing too much water to scenes or alive living things and what we're seeing i think this year out here in death valley is the perfect conditions to germinate those scenes break that waxy coating that covers the seams and life in germany and anderson see a flowerpot a five five it will come from miles to see the five spots they have almost a very violent family with five through its pipes surrounded by white on the inside and his instincts over the flower basically this plant's invitingly pollinate years inside an

unusually out in the desert it's pretty windy in their holiday news can get in there and be protected and they pollinate plants and there's nothing there ranger vickie wolfe says the banner year for plants means plenty to eat for mice bighorn sheep kit foxes bobcats and everyone up the food chain it will be good for their young to have so much food and reproductive success will be high that share for all those animals aldo raine says wolfe has also created a miles long shallow lake in the valley and these kayakers started arriving a couple of months ago when they heard about it more kayakers are appearing everywhere people are going out there swimming death valley people called boarding in a salty lake a kaleidoscope of delicate flowers sprouting from an austere and forbidding landscape it's it's really far out kind of psychedelic and people certainly are grouping on the flowers krista wally egon of connecticut was in las vegas when she heard about the blue and decided

to check him out and boy or not this and it's amazing it's just so much color and at such a wide open area with so many flowers as far as the eye can see and a great adventure like there's so much might here now although wildflowers at death valley's lower elevations are expected to bloom out certain park rangers have been reassuring frantic collars that there will be blooms at higher elevations to may or june and there are many other glorious places to see wildflowers this year including the antelope valley and liberate a state park and joshua tree national park in death valley elsa set sail at nine point three kpcc