Image of Linanthus dichotomus subsp. dichotomus

Description:

evening snow, Linanthus dichotomus subsp. dichotomus, Sierra Nevada, Tungsten Hills, McGee Creek, Owens Valley drainage, elevation 1515 m (4965 ft). In wetter spring seasons when this annual appears, it earns its common name soon after sundown by transforming from thready, barely visible plants like this one, to fields of fragrant bright white blossoms (next posts). Once I saw this one during midday, my fate was sealed: I would have to rise well before the sun next morning, for any hope of catching a few flowers open before the sky brightened too much. Like several other white night-flowering members of the Phlox family, this subspecies emits an intense perfume throughout the night, presumably to attract the night-foraging moths that visit its flowers. Sometimes I only realize such species are around my campsite after spending the first night bathed in their fragrance. The flowers of a rarer subspecies, L. dichotomus subsp. meridianus restricted to north coastal California, remain open during the day.