The greening of Castle Valley...

is occurring right now, with more wildflowers showing off their colors, despite the low soil moisture.

View northward from near Round Mountain. Click on image to expandify.

Utah penstemon (Penstemon utahensis).

Narrow leaf yucca (Yucca angustissima).

Both lovely and toxic...

at the same time, do not consume the bulb of this tiny beauty with a threatening name. Blossoming right on time in mid-April at the Round Mountain annex to the Castle Valley Botanical Gardens.

Panicled death-camas (Toxicoscordion paniculatum).

There's a jungle of volunteer sunflowers...

brightening the high desert landscape, many as tall as a person. It’s quite the display in Castle Valley and elsewhere.

The sun flares in these images are a result of closing down the camera’s aperture to its smallest opening. I manually set it at f/22 and make sure I have a very clean lens and shoot directly into the Sun. Easy.

Stem tips ablaze...

from the summer heat, well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. The only splash of bright color in the high desert in early summer is provided by the vibrant broom snakeweed seen below.

Broom snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae).

Forests of stamens...

topped with millions of anthers producing trillions of pollen particles in countless wildflowers during this season’s super bloom in the high desert is really hammering my allergies. It’s been quite miserable this year, especially if one likes to breathe freely.

Macro image of prickly pear cactus blossom showing the stigma (green bulb in center) surrounded by hundreds of stamens consisting of anthers at the tips of each filament. Amazing micro universe when one gets small.

Covered with pollen particles...

a bee emerges from a prickly pear cactus blossom in the rock garden. On to the next flower, a pollinator’s work is never done.

Prickly pear cactus (genus Opuntia).

NOTE: This image was shot with a handheld 400 mm telephoto lens from a standing position. Nearly as good as a tripod-mounted macro lens close to the subject.

The now-blossoming globemallow...

in Castle Valley is attracting the tiny pollinating bees and I’m on the lookout for their ground-dwelling hives.

Globe mallow bee (Diadasia diminuta) on the common globemallow flower (Sphaeralcea coccinea).

UPDATE: Here’s a shot taken this evening as a bee settles in for a slumber as the blossom closes for the night.