busy week at the key...

What a beautiful week we have had. Spring is here with a vengeance. There are so many flowering plant species out and about. At every site I go to for work there are many flowers I don't know. Luckily with construction monitoring, there are hours of downtime where I can key out plants. Last week I was really busy figuring out all the weeds and tiny flowers in the area. I even keyed out some grasses which can be frustrating but it went well.
Check out this hillside.... Nothing says spring like a grassy hill covered with yellow flowers.
i believe the flowers are Brassica nigra.
I also keyed out :
Amsinkia menziesii var. indindia
Trifolium dubium
Trifolium fagiferum
Elymus elymoides
Erodium brachycarpum
Lupinus bicolor
Silene gallica
Schimus molle
Grindelia camporum var. camporum
Lolium multiflorum
Avena barbata
Melilotus indica
Elymus glaucus
Medicago polymorpha
Hordeum murinum ssp. uiridis
Amagallis arvensis
Lotus humistratus
Vincia villosa ssp. varia

My favorite plant I keyed out this week was Castilleja exserta ssp. exserta.
such a cool flower. I have never seen one of these before and it was very pretty.
like I said, there was lots of downtime. Construction monitoring is very boring and I love this distraction. Keying out plant species makes the day go by so fast!!!