Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, 1999
Photograph by Len Jenshel
"A pretty poison, woolly locoweed, flowering during autumn, can make cattle that eat its toxic leaves go berserk and die."
—From "Celebrating Canyon Country," July 1999, National Geographic magazine
St. Elias Mountains, Yukon Territory, Canada, 1997
Photograph by Robert Clark
"Where glaciers meet mountains in Canada's Yukon Territory, some peaks jut from the ice like islands in a frozen sea. These crags, called nunataks, may appear barren, but biologist David Hik ... has discovered that collectively they harbor hundreds of species, [like these] delicate alpine forget-me-nots. ..."
—From "Nunataks," December 1998, National Geographic magazine
St. Elias Mountains, Yukon Territory, Canada, 1997
Photograph by Robert Clark
The showy moss campion brightens an isolated Yukon peak. How did the plant species reach this isolated region? Winds likely carried seeds over a glacial landscape.
—Text adapted from "Nunataks," December 1998, National Geographic magazine
Middleton Place, South Carolina, 1938
Photograph by B. Anthony Stewart
The gardens at South Carolina's Middleton Place were begun in 1741 and are one of the oldest formally landscaped gardens in the United States. Designed to mirror the ordered, geometrically-balanced style that was popular in Europe at the time, the gardens are now planned so that flowering plants are in bloom in each of the four seasons.
Southwestern United States, 1998
Photograph by Peter Essick
Californian poppies are usually seen with a variety of wildflowers in drought-tolerant areas. They reseed so readily that they can become weedy.
(Photographed on assignment for, but not published in, "America's Wilderness," November 1998, National Geographic magazine)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1991
Photograph by Sam Abell
"Rusting cans and old tires covered a vacant lot in the Point Breeze neighborhood until its transformation by the Philadelphia Green program."
—From "The Gift of Gardening," May 1992, National Geographic magazine
Cape Finisterre, Spain, 1976
Photograph by James P. Blair
"At their height, around the third century B.C., [the Celts'] sway extended from the 'end of earth,' Cape Finisterre [pictured] in Spain, all the way to the Black Sea, and from the North Sea to the Mediterranean."
(Photographed on assignment for, but not published in, "The Celts," May 1977, National Geographic magazine)
Unknown, 1975
Photograph by Bianca Lavies
"Like different cities, no two ponds are alike, but many contain the water lily. Moored to a thick rootstalk by a sturdy stem, lily pads are custom built for floating, with a water-repellent surface. The broad leaves spread flat on the water to soak up maximum sunshine."
—From "Life Around a Lily Pad," January 1980, National Geographic magazine