Mountain Hardware
Mojave River Valley Museum
Plants in Death Valley
Despite its reputation as a lifeless wasteland, Death Valley National Park contains a great
diversity of plants. The park covers over 3 million acres of Mojave and Great Basin desert terrain,
with elevations ranging from 282 feet below sea level at Badwater Basin to 11,049 feet on the summit
of Telescope Peak. Annual precipitation varies from 1.9 inches on the valley floor to over 15
inches in the higher mountains.
Vegetation zones include creosote bush, desert holly, and mesquite at the lower elevations up
through shadscale, blackbrush, Joshua tree, pinyon-juniper, to sub-alpine limber pine and
bristlecone pine woodlands. The saltpan is devoid of vegetation, and the rest of the valley floor
and lower slopes have sparse cover, yet where water is available, an abundance of vegetation is
usually present.
Cactus and Succulents
The Mojave Desert is rich with cacti and succulent species, yet in Death Valley National Park they are scarce due to the extremes of heat, dryness and soil salinity. Even so, cactus grow from ...Wildflowers
Some years the desert is spectacular with wildflowers; other years the blossoms are almost nonexistent ...-
Source - National Park Service
Desert gold - Gerea canescens
