It’s A Small World – Belly Flowers

Some of my favorite wildflowers are the belly flowers, blooms so small and low to the ground you need to get down on your belly to really check them out. These treasures grow in two of my favorite habitats, the desert and alpine tundra.

I mentioned in my Then and Now post last month that these two habitats, although vastly different, share lots of astonishing similarities.  When Anne Sandler of Slow Shutter Speed chose “It’s a Small World” as the theme for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to expound on one of those similarities, belly flowers.

The tundra can be incredibly cold and the desert unbelievably hot, but one challenge common to both is the wind – harsh, desiccating winds that will suck the life out of most plants. Laying low is a good strategy for plants that live in these extreme environments.

Laying low is a great strategy, (and one that I can relate to during this crazy winter!) but it’s not always enough. There are other strategies that many of these plants share, too. For instance, most belly flowers hold onto moisture and prevent harm from damaging UV rays by wearing a sweater. In both the desert and the mountains, many belly flowers have fuzzy leaves or even furry flowers. These hairs not only protect them from too much sun, they also help hold in moisture so it doesn’t evaporate as quickly.

Have you ever crowded together with your friends on a cold, blustery day to stay warm? Some plants grow in cushions or mounds for the same reason. Low, rounded cushions do not leave much surface area exposed to the elements. They retain water, soaking it in instead of letting it all run off.  They also catch dust and dirt blowing in the wind and anchor it in place. Since both habitats have thin, poor, rocky soils, capturing and anchoring the minerals and nutrients blowing by is an excellent survival strategy.  Moss campion is the best-known alpine cushion flower. My favorite desert cushion is Turtleback.

Turtlebacks were named after their resemblance to a turtle shell, but those convoluted, gray-green leaves also look a lot like a certain important body part. On one of my favorite hikes as a ranger, I was leading a small group up a nameless, nondescript wash in Death Valley. I was walking with an older, slower visitor and let some of the other visitors take the lead. Around a bend in the canyon, I found a little girl and her father crouched down, intently studying something on the ground in front of them. “What did you find?”, I asked. The little girl looked up, face filled with wonder, and said, “We found a brain flower!”

Survival strategies are good, but worthless if you can’t pass them on to the next generation. Reproduction strategies are important, too. For some belly flowers, it’s a numbers game. If there are lots and lots and lots of flowers, the odds are that some will survive long enough for their seeds to mature. It may be easy to overlook one or two tiny flowers, but if you have thousands upon thousands of them, the blooms will literally carpet hillsides and paint the entire landscape with their pastel colors.

Other flowers are more flamboyant, sure to be noticed by pollinators because of both their size and bright colors. The plant lays low, diminutive and nondescript until it’s showtime. Then it’s hard to believe such a teeny tiny plant could produce such a big, showy flower.

Many flowers use yet another reproduction strategy, one that is a great reason to get down on your belly and up close and personal. Attract those pollinators with your irresistible perfume!  Rock Jasmine, an alpine flower – well, the name says it all. Desert Sand Verbena is another one. It has the loveliest fragrance of any flower in the desert.

I have a little game for you to play. With so many strategies in common, it could be hard to tell a desert belly flower from an alpine one. Check out the following five flowers. Can you tell which ones are desert flowers and which ones grow in the Alaskan tundra? Leave your thoughts in the comments. I’ll put the answers there in a few days, and also let you know in next week’s post.

By the way, it IS a small world. During these difficult times, it’s good for the soul to practice gratitude and express thanks for the little things in life. It helps make dealing with the big things a little easier. Thanks for reading my posts! Until next time, Happy Trails!