Plants
There are 11 species of conifer trees and over 800 species of plants in Great Basin National Park and the neighboring valleys.
The area around the Visitor Center is dominated by plants such as sagebrush, saltbush, Single-leaf Pinyon, and Utah Juniper. Higher elevations are home to mountain meadows, White Fir, Quaking Aspen, Englemann Spruce, and large Ponderosa Pine. At treeline is an alpine area of low, delicate plants and rocky outcroppings.
The oldest non-clonal organism ever discovered, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine tree at least 5000 years old, grew at the treeline near Wheeler Peak in the National Park. It was cut down in 1964 by a graduate student and U.S. Forest Service personnel for research purposes. It was given the nickname Prometheus, after the mythological figure who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.
Read more about this topic: Great Basin National Park
Famous quotes containing the word plants:
“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 3:7-9.
“The holly and the ivy
Are plants that are well known
Of all the trees that grow in the woods
The holly bears the crown.”
—Unknown. The Holly and the Ivy (l. 1–4)
“From the time the Englishman’s bones harden into bones at all, he makes his skeleton a flagstaff, and he early plants his feet like one who is to walk the world and the decks of all the seas.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)