![\"On](\"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/IMG_2233.jpg\")
<\/a>On a salt flat in Smith Creek Valley, NV<\/p><\/div>\n
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The huge variety of seed sizes and forms is really interesting, and training myself to look for seed has really added a new depth to my knowledge of and interest in botany. Mimulus guttatus<\/em> seeds are so small and numerous that they appear as a fine, black powder. Epilobium ciliatum<\/em> seeds are tiny, attached to tufts, and carried off by the wind. Needle-and-thread grass seeds are corkscrew-shaped and literally screw themselves into the ground. As always, plants are incredible.<\/p>\n However, I have definitely seen some noteworthy, non-botanical things as we have traveled around the NV deserts. The coolest thing I have seen recently is glow-in-the-dark scorpions! Apparently, all scorpions fluoresce under black lights, and we saw many of them on a night walk at Sand Mountain.<\/p>\n I am a scorpion.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Easily the creepiest and darkly weirdest thing I have seen so far was in one of the salt flats in Smith Creek Valley. Maybe a mile or so in, there is a large, wooden post with two dead animals hanging from it. At the top was a mummified cow (with what looks like a bird\u2019s nest in its pelvis). Near the bottom was a second skeleton, suspended by wires which creaked when the wind blew. There were no signs nor any indication whatsoever of why everything was there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why.<\/p><\/div>\n Welcome to the desert!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seed collection is great because it gives you a legitimate reason to drive\/hike around, explore new places, and look at plants, and you get paid to do it! Not finding much around the volcanic craters near Mono Lake? Why don\u2019t … Continue reading <\/a><\/a>