I'm now on an alpine flower trek in Kazakhstan (a
retirement present to
myself). Today we are at a guest house with wifi so I'm
doing some e-mail.
We spent the day hiking in the lower reaches of the the
Asku-Dzhagly
Nature Preserve. Iris sodgiana (one of the Spuria iris)
was all along
the trail. We are very late in its bloom season, but as we
approached
an elevation of 1700 meters a few stragglers were still
producing
flowers. I'm attaching a couple photos. I'm hoping to see
some under
better weather conditions in a day or so. These flowers
are very pale.
At least some of them have fine, light purple veining on
the falls when
the flowers first open.
We also saw Iris willmottianna (one of the Juno iris) on a
few exposed,
well-drained areas. The flowers are long past and, except
for a plant
deep under a bush, the plants are now fully desiccated. It
is
conceivable that there are plants still blooming up in the
sub-alpine
zone, so there is hope that I'll see one on Sunday.
We encountered Iris alberti (a bearded iris) near Almaty a
few days ago.
They were well past bloom and, I believe, only have
low-elevation
populations.
Ken Walker
Concord, CA USA
