Columnist Susan Snyder: Scenery is a bloomin’ miracle

Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2005 | 8:14 a.m.

Rainy days bring Las Vegas Valley residents a whole host of opportunities:

Flash floods, idiotic drivers and the realization that yes, your windshield wipers really are rotted. Rain also brings wildflowers, whose time in the desert is so fleeting we shouldn't miss the opportunity to enjoy them.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area officials say the wet winter promises to make this one of the best-ever wildflower seasons. Flowers at the park's southern end already have begun blooming, they say.

We were in Death Valley a couple of weeks ago, and the roadside between Shoshone and Ashford Mill was awash in colorful blooms. Lavendar weakstem mariposa lilies were tucked among ...

Oh, who am I kidding? I learned the lily's name from the official Death Valley Web site. I wouldn't know an Arizona lupine from a notchleaf phacelia.

I do know, however, that a sprawling field of something that looks like bright yellow daisies will take your breath when it's set against slate-gray, snow-capped mountains and a line of purple peaks even more distant.

I am wildflower challenged. During state park docent training a few years ago, we had a full-day unit about identifying desert plants. The class took place when everything was in bloom.

By summer, when the blooms were gone and the tender green leaves shriveled, I couldn't name a single twig. Ditto for fall and winter. And even the next spring, many of the names escaped me.

They still do. No number of photo guides can help me remember the names of these fleeting acquaintances.

But I know a columbine when I see one, with its purple petals that unfold like wings from a feathery yellow center. Reminds me of a particularly lovely trip to Colorado we took a few summers ago.

And I can visualize Queen Anne's lace and smell its pungent sweetness even while sitting inside. It's the flower of my childhood and reminds me of summer.

A woman I used to hike with in Utah could name every flower along the trail. Those she couldn't name, we plucked and took home to compare with pictures in a book.

To this day I remember only the ones we left behind -- Indian paintbrush and the Sego lily. The former has a wonderful myth of its origin. The latter is Utah's rare state flower. When you see one, you remember.

Carson's "The Sense of Wonder" was published in 1965, unfinished a year after her death. But its message is timeless: It doesn't matter what you call the flower. It only matters that you stop long enough to see it, touch it, drink in its scent and admire its surroundings.

I could list right here all the flowers that you can see out at Lake Mead when the rain stops. But it would be like a gossip column listing the names of celebrities you don't know.

Just grab your lunch and get out there. The perky purple ones and big, floppy yellow ones and droopy orangey-red ones are waiting. You eventually will learn all of their names.

But first, you must be properly introduced.