14,380

The intrepid Portal adventurers counted 14,380 individual plants on 382 sampling quadrats (0.25 m2 each), while also trapping >150 rodents, in only 4 days (March 12-15)! It was a whirlwind trip, but we had a lot of fun and learned a lot about plants! The numbers show Astragalus nuttalianus (Nuttall’s milk vetch, a very small plant) and Erodium cicutarium (Stork’s Bill, a dominant, spreading rosette) to be the most common annuals by far, followed by Lesquerella gordoni (Gordon’s Bladderpod, with pretty yellow flowers), Chaenactis steviodes (Esteve’s pincushion, a fleshy plant with white flowers), and Descurainia pinnata (western tansy mustard, a leggy, inconspicuous mustard).

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