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The Great Expanse
Species: Dakota Vervain or Prairie Verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida), Stemmed four-nerved daisy (Tetraneuris scaposa)
Habitat: Stemmed four-nerved daisy thrives on dry hillsides, mesa, and roadsides in the plains to foothills. Dakota Vervain likes rocky and disturbed areas in grasslands and low-elevation forests.
Image Location: Santa Rosa Lake, New Mexico
Public Land: Santa Rosa Lake State Park
Description: At first glance, the Southern Great Plains vast horizon-spanning expanse stretch endlessly—an open sea of grass and scattered junipers. But for those who look deeper, rare springs, caves, and sinkhole lakes reveal a world of life found nowhere else. In spring, the land speaks in color, bursting with wildflower blooms that transform the plain into a vibrant celebration of place.
The Great Plains form a broad expanse of flatland in the interior U.S. stretching east of the Rocky Mountains. A small portion of this ecosystem extends into eastern New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma in a region known as the “Southern Great Plains.” This region of arid short-grass prairie and juniper-studded rolling hills hides in its vast horizon-spanning expanses unique ecosystems such as the shinnery oak forests— an oak forest in miniature reaching only three feet in height and harboring the endemic subspecies of Lesser Prairie-Chicken; spring-fed wetlands called “ciénegas” unique to the Southwest with rare plants and animals found nowhere else in the world; miles-long underground cave systems with blind and albino animals; and several-hundred-feet-deep-sinkhole lakes with rumored ancient sponge-like creatures inhabiting their depths as hangovers from the last ice age. Some of New Mexico’s most diverse and abundant wildflower blooms happen here in spring after winters with plentiful rain.
Prints: Fine art print on acid free, 100% cotton, bright or warm white, textured surface, archival quality paper. For more about papers I use click here.
Species: Dakota Vervain or Prairie Verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida), Stemmed four-nerved daisy (Tetraneuris scaposa)
Habitat: Stemmed four-nerved daisy thrives on dry hillsides, mesa, and roadsides in the plains to foothills. Dakota Vervain likes rocky and disturbed areas in grasslands and low-elevation forests.
Image Location: Santa Rosa Lake, New Mexico
Public Land: Santa Rosa Lake State Park
Description: At first glance, the Southern Great Plains vast horizon-spanning expanse stretch endlessly—an open sea of grass and scattered junipers. But for those who look deeper, rare springs, caves, and sinkhole lakes reveal a world of life found nowhere else. In spring, the land speaks in color, bursting with wildflower blooms that transform the plain into a vibrant celebration of place.
The Great Plains form a broad expanse of flatland in the interior U.S. stretching east of the Rocky Mountains. A small portion of this ecosystem extends into eastern New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma in a region known as the “Southern Great Plains.” This region of arid short-grass prairie and juniper-studded rolling hills hides in its vast horizon-spanning expanses unique ecosystems such as the shinnery oak forests— an oak forest in miniature reaching only three feet in height and harboring the endemic subspecies of Lesser Prairie-Chicken; spring-fed wetlands called “ciénegas” unique to the Southwest with rare plants and animals found nowhere else in the world; miles-long underground cave systems with blind and albino animals; and several-hundred-feet-deep-sinkhole lakes with rumored ancient sponge-like creatures inhabiting their depths as hangovers from the last ice age. Some of New Mexico’s most diverse and abundant wildflower blooms happen here in spring after winters with plentiful rain.
Prints: Fine art print on acid free, 100% cotton, bright or warm white, textured surface, archival quality paper. For more about papers I use click here.