Hollis

LATEST ARTICLES ( 468 )

• Late Season Early Morning Beauty

  

  Prickly poppy, Argemone sp.When I visited northeast Nevada in October, the days were mild, the nights cold, and the light low and warm. Read more

  Posted on 30 November 2021 OUTDOORS

• A Glimpse of the Underworld, High in the Ruby Mts

  

  Trailer Park Rock, part of the Harrison Pass pluton.Plutons are large bodies of rock, specifically igneous rock and therefore once molten. Like their namesake,... Read more

  Posted on 14 November 2021 OUTDOORS

• Treefollowing: Wordless Wednesday (nearly)

  

  Flash the maple is thick with dried samaras.Spike the hawthorn still sports a bit of red and green.~🍂~Though the beech is goldenI cannot stand beside itmute, bu... Read more

  Posted on 10 November 2021 OUTDOORS

• Finding Petrophytum & Sereno Watson's Ghost

  

  Petrophytum caespitosum mat on limestone. Dark spots are shadows cast by flower clusters.In a narrow rocky canyon on the east side of the Ruby Mountains, I was... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2021 OUTDOORS

• Crystalline Beauty Amid the Garbage and the Flowers

  

  On my recent geotrip in eastern Nevada, I often stopped at road cuts—those man-made features so beloved by geologists. A cut removes weathered rock,... Read more

  Posted on 19 October 2021 OUTDOORS

• Tree Following & Other News from the Yard

  

  I asked my young trees, "What does the future hold?" But all I heard was wind in the leaves.From a distance, it looked like Flash the maple and Spike the... Read more

  Posted on 12 October 2021 OUTDOORS

• Reassembling Western Nevada

  

  Lone Mountain, a thick stack of Lower Paleozoic sediments deposited on the continental shelf of Laurentia. North of US Hwy 50, c. 15 mi west of Eureka.This... Read more

  Posted on 27 September 2021 OUTDOORS

• Mysterious Stones of the Laramie Mountains

  

  A story of granite, grus, and tors.If you wander the summit of the Laramie Mountains as dusk falls, chances are you will spot mysterious creatures silhouetted... Read more

  Posted on 20 September 2021 OUTDOORS

• Green and Red; Stipules and Suckers

  

  In the foreground is skinny Spike, the hawthorn. Behind is Flash, the maple (red canopy).Since my last report, there has been only a little change in the trees... Read more

  Posted on 14 September 2021 OUTDOORS

• Where on Earth Did Western Nevada Go?

  

  Does the Siberian craton include part of Nevada? (source; text added).Nevada geologists claim that their state is diverse. I think they're right. Read more

  Posted on 07 September 2021 OUTDOORS

• The Snowy Range, 2 Billion Years in the Making

  

  Medicine Bow Mountains and the Snowy Range rise above the Laramie Plains.In the early 1980s, author John McPhee was gathering information for a book, Rising fro... Read more

  Posted on 26 August 2021 OUTDOORS

• Frank Tweedy's Traveling Plants: WY to NYC & Back

  

  Frank Tweedy. Union College Special Collections (used with permission); date unknown.Readers of this blog may remember Frank Tweedy of the US Geological... Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2021 OUTDOORS

• Tree-following: Red and Green

  

  Both trees I'm following this year are red and green, but in different ways. Last month, Flash the maple was covered in green leaves and red samaras. The samara... Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2021 OUTDOORS

• A "Peculiar" Miner's Candle

  

  Miner's candle; southern Laramie Mountains, Wyoming.In 1869, botanist Benjamin Hayes Smith of Denver, Colorado Territory, collected a plant with a tall... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2021 OUTDOORS

• Christmas in July and a Surprise!

  

  Hotwings Maple indeed!Flash, the maple, is looking very Christmasy, with a canopy of green leaves and red samaras (aka keys or whirlybirds).The big surprise is... Read more

  Posted on 13 July 2021 OUTDOORS

• Two Great Basin Shrubs—each Showy in Its Own Way

  Mountain mahogany in flower, field assistant for scale; Kingston Canyon, Nevada.Like the Great Basin itself, many of its shrubs strike people as drab. Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2021 OUTDOORS

• Tree-following: First the Good News

  

  When I returned from my trip, I found that in just two weeks, Flash, the maple, had gone from no leaves to all leafed out, and its flower buds were opening!But... Read more

  Posted on 14 June 2021 OUTDOORS

• Is There Beauty in the Great Basin?

  

  "I begin to think the Great Basin, like many other great things in this world, a great humbug ... very interesting to the geologist and geographer, but... Read more

  Posted on 03 June 2021 OUTDOORS

• Danny's Rock Tree

  

  Tree-following (kinda).I'm on the road, so instead of reporting on my followed trees, Flash and Spike, I introduce you to Danny's rock tree, next to an... Read more

  Posted on 11 May 2021 OUTDOORS

• Herbarium: The Quest... (a Book Review & More)

  

  In the early 1980s, Barbara Thiers, Director of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium (NY Botanical Garden), and 15 other prominent botanists were asked to com... Read more

  Posted on 26 April 2021 OUTDOORS