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Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex
The Desert National Wildlife Refuge is a protected wildlife refuge, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, located north of Las Vegas, Nevada, in northwestern Clark and southwestern Lincoln counties, with much of its land area lying within the southeastern section of the Nevada Test and Training Range. The Desert NWR, created on May 20, 1936, is the largest wildlife refuge in the lower 48 states of the United States, encompassing of the Mojave Desert in the southern part of Nevada. The refuge was originally established at 2.25 million acres. In 1940 840,000 acres were transferred to the Department of Defense. This Range is part of the larger Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, the Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge, and the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. All of these refuges are managed from a central office, have similar ecology, and similar management needs. Fish and Wildlife Service st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corn Creek Springs At Desert National Wildlife Refuge
Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native Americans planted it alongside beans and squashes in the Three Sisters polyculture. The leafy stalk of the plant gives rise to male inflorescences or tassels which produce pollen, and female inflorescences called ears. The ears yield grain, known as kernels or seeds. In modern commercial varieties, these are usually yellow or white; other varieties can be of many colors. Maize relies on humans for its propagation. Since the Columbian exchange, it has become a staple food in many parts of the world, with the total production of maize surpassing that of wheat and rice. Much maize is used for animal feed, whether as grain or as the whole plant, which can either be baled or made into the more palatable silage. Sugar-rich varieties called sweet corn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coniferous Forest
Conifers () are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extant conifers are perennial woody plants with secondary growth. The majority are trees, though a few are shrubs. Examples include cedars, Douglas-firs, cypresses, firs, junipers, kauri, larches, pines, hemlocks, redwoods, spruces, and yews.Campbell, Reece, "Phylum Coniferophyta". ''Biology''. 7th ed. 2005. Print. p. 595. As of 2002, Pinophyta contained seven families, 60 to 65 genera, and more than 600 living species. Although the total number of species is relatively small, conifers are ecologically important. They are the dominant plants over large areas of land, most notably the taiga of the Northern Hemisphere, but also in similar cool climates in mountains further south. Boreal conifers have many wintertime adaptations. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sagebrush
Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus ''Artemisia (plant), Artemisia''. The best-known sagebrush is the shrub ''Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrush is native to the western half of North America. Following is an alphabetical list of common names for various species of the genus ''Artemisia'', along with their corresponding scientific name, scientific names. Many of these species are known by more than one common name, and some common names represent more than one species. * Alpine sagebrush—' * African sagebrush—''Artemisia afra'' * Basin sagebrush—''Artemisia tridentata'' * Big sagebrush—see Basin sagebrush * Bigelow sagebrush—''Artemisia bigelovii'' * Birdfoot sagebrush—''Artemisia pedatifida'' * Black sagebrush—''Artemisia nova'' * Blue sagebrush—see Basin sagebrush * Boreal sagebrush—''Artemisia norvegica'' * Budsage—''Artemisia spinescens'' * California sagebrush—''Artemisia californica'' * Carruth' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utah Juniper
''Juniperus osteosperma'' (Utah juniper; syn. ''J. utahensis'') is a shrub or small tree native to the southwestern United States. Description The plant reaches , rarely to 9 m, tall. The shoots are fairly thick compared to most junipers, in diameter. The leaves are arranged in opposite decussate pairs or whorls of three; the adult leaves are scale-like, 1–2 mm long (to 5 mm on lead shoots) and 1–1.5 mm broad. The juvenile leaves (on young seedlings only) are needle-like, long. The cones are berry-like, in diameter, blue-brown with a whitish waxy bloom, and contain a single seed (rarely two); they mature in about 18 months and are eaten by birds and small mammals. The male cones are 2–4 mm long, and shed their pollen in early spring. It is mostly monoecious with both sexes on the same plant, but around 10% of plants are dioecious, producing cones of only one sex. The plants frequently bear numerous galls caused by the juniper tip midge '' Oligotro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single-leaf Pinyon
''Pinus monophylla'', the single-leaf pinyon, (alternatively spelled piñon) is a pine in the pinyon pine group, native to North America. The range is in southernmost Idaho, western Utah, Arizona, southwest New Mexico, Nevada, eastern and southern California and northern Baja California. It occurs at moderate altitudes from , rarely as low as and as high as . It is widespread and often abundant in this region, forming extensive open woodlands, often mixed with junipers in the Pinyon-juniper woodland plant community. Single-leaf pinyon is the world's only one-needled pine.Gerry Moore et al. 2008 Description ''Pinus monophylla'' is a small to medium size tree, reaching tall and with a trunk diameter of up to rarely more. The bark is irregularly furrowed and scaly. The leaves ('needles') are, uniquely for a pine, usually single (not two or more in a fascicle, though trees with needles in pairs are found occasionally), stout, long, and grey-green to strongly glaucous blue-green, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joshua Tree
''Yucca brevifolia'' (also known as the Joshua tree, yucca palm, tree yucca, and palm tree yucca) is a plant species belonging to the genus '' Yucca''. It is tree-like in habit, which is reflected in its common names. This monocotyledonous tree is native to the arid Southwestern United States (specifically California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada), and northwestern Mexico. It is confined mostly to the Mojave Desert between elevation. It thrives in the open grasslands of Queen Valley and Lost Horse Valley in Joshua Tree National Park. Other regions with a large population of the trees can be found northeast of Kingman, Arizona, in Mohave County; and along U.S. 93 just south of the community of Meadview, Arizona a route which has been designated the Joshua Tree Parkway of Arizona. The trees are also abundant in Saddleback Butte State Park north of Downtown Los Angeles in Los Angeles County's Antelope Valley. The common name, Joshua tree, is derived from Christian icono ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackbrush
''Coleogyne ramosissima'' or blackbrush, is a low lying, dark grayish-green, aromatic,Turner, Raymond M. 1982. Great Basin desertscrub. In: Brown, David E., ed. Biotic communities of the American Southwest--United States and Mexico. Desert Plants. 4(1-4): 145–155. spiny, perennial, soft wooded shrub, native to the deserts of the southwestern United States.Mojave Desert Wildflowers, Pam MacKay, p18, 252Canyon Country Wildflowers, Damian Fagan, p 3, 105 It is called blackbrush because the gray branches darken when wet by rains. It is in the rose family (Rosaceae) and is monotypic (the only species in its genus). Growth pattern It has dense, intricate branches ("ramosissima" means "many branched"). Its dense branches form spiny tips. This plant forms vast pure stands across the desert floor and on scrubby slopes, giving the landscape a uniform dark-gray color. Vegetative types in which it dominates or is a codominate are called blackbrush scrub. It drops most of its leaves and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cactus
A cactus (: cacti, cactuses, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae (), a family of the order Caryophyllales comprising about 127 genera with some 1,750 known species. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek word (''káktos''), a name originally used by Theophrastus for a spiny plant whose identity is now not certain. Cacti occur in a wide range of shapes and sizes. They are native to the Americas, ranging from Patagonia in the south to parts of western Canada in the north, with the exception of ''Rhipsalis baccifera'', which is also found in Africa and Sri Lanka. Cacti are adapted to live in very dry environments, including the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. Because of this, cacti show many adaptations to conserve water. For example, almost all cacti are succulents, meaning they have thickened, fleshy parts adapted to store water. Unlike many other succulents, the stem is the only part of most cacti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mojave Yucca
''Yucca schidigera'', also known as the Mojave yucca or Spanish dagger, is a perennial plant in the asparagus family Asparagaceae, native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It is most common in the Mojave Desert, but also occurs extensively in the Sonoran Desert and west to the Pacific coast of southern California and Baja California. Description ''Yucca schidigera'' is a small evergreen tree growing to tall, with a dense crown of spirally arranged bayonet-like leaves on top of a conspicuous basal trunk. The bark is gray-brown, being covered with brown dead leaves near the top, becoming irregularly rough and scaly-to-ridged closer to the ground. The leaves are long and broad at the base, concavo-convex, thick, very rigid, and yellow-green to blue-green in color. The flowers are white, sometimes with a purple tinge, long (rarely to 7.5 cm), bell-shaped and segmented into six parts; they are produced in a compact, bulbous cluster tall at the top o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Bursage
''Ambrosia dumosa'', the burro-weed or white bursage, a North American species of plants in the family Asteraceae. It is a common constituent of the creosote-bush scrub community throughout the Mojave Desert of California, Nevada, and Utah and the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and northwestern Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, Chihuahua). ''Ambrosia dumosa'' has been studied to determine allelopathic interactions with creosote bush, ''Larrea tridentata'', which produces a chemical that inhibits the growth of ''A. dumosa.'' Other studies have suggested that ''A. dumosa'' roots produce a chemical that causes them to grow away from conspecific roots, preventing competition for water resources. In addition to burro-weed, ''A. dumosa'' is also commonly called white bursage, and burrobush. Description ''Ambrosia dumosa'' or white bursage is a form of ragweed, is a highly branched shrub 20 to 90 cm in height. The younger stems are covered with soft gray-white ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creosote Bush
''Larrea tridentata'', called creosote bush, greasewood, and chaparral is a medicinal herb. In Sonora, it is more commonly called ''hediondilla''; Spanish ''hediondo'' = "smelly". It is a flowering plant in the family Zygophyllaceae. The specific name ''tridentata'' refers to its three-toothed leaves. Distribution ''Larrea tridentata'' is a prominent species in the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts of western North America, and its range includes those and other regions in portions of southeastern California, Arizona, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, New Mexico, and Texas in the United States, and Chihuahua, Sonora, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Zacatecas, Durango and San Luis Potosì in Mexico. The species grows as far east as Zapata County, Texas, along the Rio Grande southeast of Laredo near the 99th meridian west. Description ''Larrea tridentata'' is an evergreen shrub growing to tall, rarely . The light gray stems of the plant bear resinous, dark green leaves w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
