Index for Category – Textures in Nature

This page last updated on 12/27/2017

Click A Title To View Fiery Veins Cypress Tree at Corn Creek What is It? Devil's Golf Course Nature's Tiles Rockface Valley of Fire Desert Trails

Green Manzanita (Ericaceae Arctostaphylos)

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(Fig. 01) Title - Fiery Veins

(Fig. 02) Picture Notes: I captured the picture of a burned bush (Fig. 01) that got caught in the fire that swept through a portion of Lovell Canyon (Fig. 03) during the early part of July 2013. Its charred branches reminded me of the veins and arteries that course through the human body, hence the title “Fire Veins”. Because it still seemed to be well rooted, I wonder if it will ever “come back”. The next time I hike this area I plan to check on it. I have actually come across this plant on previous hikes. The one in (Fig. 02) was taken along the (Lower) Lost Creek Falls Trail inside the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Though I’m not sure of its identification, based upon its reddish brown bark and the fact that it produces clusters of pink flowers, I think it might be a either a Green Manzanita (Ericaceae Arctostaphylos) or a Arctostaphylos densiflora. Description: Green-leaf Manzanita is a bushy evergreen shrub with smooth, reddish brown, spreading stems which are up to 3-4 high and can propagate by layering, and growing to 6 feet with stiff, gnarly branches. The leaf is Alternate, simple, persistent; 1 to 2 inches long, leathery, and ovate to elliptical; entire margins, green and smooth on both surfaces, often orient themselves perpendicular to the sun's rays. Foliage is sparsely covered with short hairs and yellow glands. Short-stalked, pinkish-white, urn-shaped flowers are clustered in branched inflorescences on the stem tips. The urn-shaped corolla, which is ca. 2.3 inches long, has 5 short lobes, and the calyx has 5 nearly separate sepals. There are 10 stamens. The brownish, glabrous berry is 2-1/2-3 inches across.

(Fig. 03)

Cypress Tree at Corn Creek

I love taking pictures of old trees, especially those with abnormal gnarled parts, with really unusual shapes or crazy roots. Between their bark and burley knots, they offer some of the most interesting textures and color variations found in nature. This picture was taken on 2/3/2011 at Corn Creek inside the Desert Wildlife Range, NV. You gotta wonder just how old this tree is?

What is It?

Here is a crop of a picture I took at Tule Springs on 02/03/2011. As soon as I saw this I knew I had to add it to my "Textures in Nature" series.  If you think you know what it is, click here to view the full picture.

Nature’s Tiles

This picture was taken on 01/20/2011 on a daytrip to the Lovell Wash along Lake Mead’s North Shore Road. Veering off to the right, off the rough dirt road that winds through Lovell Wash, about a mile and a half into the wash as it heads toward the Anniversary Mine, are a series of rises and hills that make for easy climbing. Very near the top of the highest hill I found a river of stone that appeared to have once been a layer of mud, turned stone, that then at some point was broken like a smashed pane of glass, leaving thousands of shards looking like small pieces of Italian mosaic tiles. The photo below provides some context to this shot.

The Devil's Golf Course - Death Valley National Park

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This page last updated on 02/09/2018

On 04/11/2010 I drive out to an area on the valley’s floor called the Devil’s Golf Course. The surface n this area surely provides one of the most fascinating natural textures in existence.  It was so named after a line in the 1934 National Park Service guide book to Death Valley National Monument, which stated that " Only the devil could play golf " on its surface, due to a rough texture from the large Halite salt crystal formations.

Background: Lake Manly once covered the valley to a depth of more than 30 feet. The Halite salt crystals consists of the minerals that were dissolved in the lake's water and left behind in the Badwater Basin as the lake evaporated. With an elevation several feet above the valley floor at Badwater, this area remains dry, allowing weathering processes to sculpt the salt there into complicated forms. Through exploratory holes drilled by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, prior to Death Valley becoming a national monument in 1934, it was discovered that the salt and gravel beds of the valley floor in this location extend to a depth of more than 1,000 feet; later studies suggest that in places the depth ranges up to 9,000 feet.

Rockface

This picture was taken on 05/02/2009 at Bellagio’s Conservatory and Botanical Garden.

Valley of Fire

Over the past several years I have made several trips to the Valley of Fire state park. Back in April of 2009 I found this intricate, three dimensional texture in sandstone on the vertical face of a rock outcrop that was situated nearly 70 feet in the air. It is amazing how over thousands of years, the effects of weather, wind and rain, can create such intricate carvings.

Desert Trails

This picture was taken in late March of 2008 on a hike into Red Rock Canyon with my cousin Johnny. It is merely a close-up of a relatively small rock I found lying on the surface of the ground. I found the striations to be fascinating and to this day still wonder what caused their intricate creation. Here (on the right) is the original picture from which the crop was made.