In the desert a million million plants wake up and realize their once in a lifetime chance. Magic water from the sky. Wait no longer. Let roots erupt and dig, let the stems rise and unfurl leaves. It's a race. From seed to seed through flowers before the waxing sun blasts the land into dun uniformity again.
El Niño also inspired me. I like water. I also like flowers, so I made regular trips into the desert to find them. It wasn't hard. Around every corner was a new polychrome surprise, even in places like Poison Canyon and Death Valley. Life covered the land in brief beauty.
For every flower I photographed there were a hundred I didn't. Presented on these pages are some of the transitory glories of the Great Bloom of 1998. Note that to preserve detail these images are large, so may take some time to load. I believe they'll be worth your time.
This page's purpose is to share beauty. I originally intended to provide scientific information as comprehensive as I could find, but other sites do that better than I ever will. I will instead concentrate on the flowers' sheer loveliness.