Vegetation
Vegetation in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness can be divided into three different zones of riparian vegetation communities, which run parallel to each side of the river. Plants found closest to the water include cattails, common reeds, sedges, rushes, and horsetails.
Drier soil farther from the water makes a good environment for woody vegetation which has survived the repeated flooding, such as coyote willow, cottonwood, ash, tamarisk, and seep-willow. This zone is referred to as the "regeneration site" because some of the trees that grow here survive to produce the next generation of mature canopy.
Beyond the regeneration site trees grow strong and tall. Dominant vegetation includes cottonwood, willow, ash, and tamarisk. This zone is the fringe between riparian and desert uplands, often sharing vegetation like rabbitbrush, Indian ricegrass, arrowweed, and sand dropseed.
Other vegetation found in the Wilderness include pinyon pine, juniper, boxelder, various species of cactus, and other desert flora.
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Famous quotes containing the word vegetation:
“We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood.... What a perfect maturity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a successful life concluded by a death not premature, which is an ornament to Nature. What if we were to mature as perfectly, root and branch, glowing in the midst of our decay, like the poke!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winter ... decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)