Hello hikers,

Our hiking website www.aschg.org now has lots of good information and options for wildflower enthusiasts.

• Some 280 different wildflowers spotted on hikes, organized by color, common and Latin names.
• Photos of those wildflowers taken by hikers as well as a web reference for each species.
• A Picasa web album of the flowers seen to help hikers review and identify wildflowers.
• Instructions on how to add your flower photo to the website, add a new flower to the list or report flower sightings from a particular hike.
• A second set of mystery flowers and identifications for the first set of mystery flowers.

We encourage you to add your flower photos to the website and thank all the hikers who already have contributed photos. Each species has space for up to 12 photos, so don't be shy. You'll need to identify the flower and provide the date when you took the photo plus the hike or location. Marilyn Warrant can help with photo issues or, if you cannot identify the flower but have as wonderful photo, she may add your submission to the mystery file.

For a few wildflowers that are common here but can be difficult to identify by species-penstemon, paintbrush, cinquefoil--we have listed the genus followed by spp., the abbreviation for species, plural. Use these more general listings if you know the genus but cannot be sure of the species.

Thanks to Nancy Carr, who identified mystery flower PK2, Wild four o'clock, Mirabilis multiflora. Check out the mystery flower photos and see if you can identify any of the new ones. Ken and Judie think they identified others in the original set.

Now that spring is here all we need is rain for the flowers to start blooming. We hope you'll get involved by reporting the flowers you see on hikes, submitting your wildflower photos for the flora-fauna part of the website and adding new species you've seen on hikes.

Judie Schwartz
judieschwartz@hotmail.com

Ken Smith
kwsmit@swcp.com

Marilyn Warrant
mariwnm@centurylink.net

Randy Simons
randy_simons@msn.com