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.

Click any image for the online gallery and click any image in the gallery for a caption.

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Scientific names for these can be found on a page on this website – link.