Three Countries in Two Weeks: Lots of Plants

The mistress of this blogspot said I had to write something about my
recent trip, so here goes: I signed up for a Greentours.com tour of Iberia and Morocco focusing primarily on the many species of narcissi that are native to that region. There were 7 members, plus 2 leaders, in our group and we were all intent on getting up close to every interesting plant we saw. Some narcissi were hanging from steep rock faces, many were hugging the asphalt of roads, others were in soggy wet streamsides. The leaders knew what they were leading us to and they made sure to go over the botanical names of just about everything we saw (including butterflies, birds and one snake) from a long check list every other evening . I hope to get up to speed with labeling all the plant species that I photographed (yikes, that's a lot!).
Morocco was an experience in itself. The Atlas Mountains are magnificent and we did a lot of single lane, dirt road, hairpin turn and wash-out navigation up and down the slopes - Not for those with vertigo. Often, we were wearing all the clothes we brought for warmth, but fortunately we were never forced to leave the slopes due to rain, hail or freezing temperatures.
I leave you with an image of the only plant we saw of this species and one that our leaders had never before seen in Morocco: Androcymbium gramineum