At the end of summer I hiked a loop route across the grasslands benchlands off Rose Hill. The silt-sand-clay ridges and gullies were once under a glacial lake and were scoured by meltwaters as the ice and snow melted. Much of the area is covered by grass and sagebrush, but the upper north-facing gullies have some trees and shrubs. Wildflowers appear early on the lower-elevation open benchlands. By summer the area is dry and only a few seasonal wildflowers and shrubs are still green and showing an occasional flower.

On this hike I spotted the usual suspects – rubber rabbitbrush, low sagebrush, Manitoba maple, white prairie-aster, curlycup gumweed, and goldenrod, shared here as a grid.

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