We camped in a very remote place in northern Nevada called Yellow Rock Canyon.\u00a0 In addition to some of the most nail-biting trail driving we’ve ever experienced, I also got to explore the aphids living on four kinds of sagebrush all in one locality (Artemisia tridentata<\/em> both Basin and Wyoming, Artemisia cana<\/em>, and Artemisia arbuscula<\/em>).\u00a0 Sagebrush aphids are very diverse, a great majority having been described from Artemisia tridentata<\/em>.\u00a0 My suspicion is that like me, many previous collectors did not know the sagebrush species well enough, and lumped species and subspecies of potential ecological importance into that single name on their slides.\u00a0 Now that I am learning to recognize all the sagebrushes, I am eager to look for apparent host-specificity among the plethora of aphids.<\/p>\n Yellow Rock Canyon area, Nevada. Note the amazing rock calved off of the cliff, still leaning against it.<\/p><\/div>\n Early June<\/span><\/p>\n We spent a cool, spring-like weekend in the northern Warner Mountains, at an old mostly-abandoned campground.\u00a0 All weekend long we saw one vehicle drive by on the road.\u00a0 I was lucky enough to find several of my target study species here, including undescribed species on Potentilla gracilis<\/em>, Geum triflorum<\/em>, and Holodiscus discolor dumosus<\/em>.\u00a0 We also walked a very good hike to Cook Peak, going high enough to have to clamber around a remaining snow field obstructing the trail.\u00a0 This is one of several hikes we’ve done in the area on nice days, on national recreation trails, and saw no other humans all day.\u00a0 If you want to hike in peace and solitude, come to the Warner Mountains of Oregon.<\/p>\n Hiking Cook Peak in the Warner Mountains.<\/p><\/div>\n Early July<\/span><\/p>\n Our long-weekend trip in early July was to the Warner Mountains again, this time near Crane Mountain.\u00a0 One of my goals was to collect on the vigorously growing wildflowers in Dismal Swamp where I know of a very strange and probably undescribed species of Uroleucon (Lambersius)<\/em>, plus I wanted to look for Potentilla fruticosa<\/em> and the elusive aphid Myzaphis canadensis<\/em>.\u00a0 I found the former, but alas, the latter was not present.\u00a0 We also wanted to hike to the summit of Crane Mountain, the highest point in the Oregon portion of the Warners.\u00a0 To our surprise, the hike was not terribly steep, most of it being on an old road that serviced a fire lookout tower that used to stand atop the mountain.\u00a0 The ridge at the summit was yet again a site of Holodiscus<\/em> heavily infested with a few aphid species that were just beyond the fundatrix stage.\u00a0 Also, it was further proof of the migration of Uroleucon (Lambersius) erigeronensis<\/em> up elevation gradients as the season develops — in this site there was a small yellow-flowering composite that was uniformly infested with alate Uroleucon<\/em> and their offspring.<\/p>\n![\"Yellow](\"https:\/\/aphidtrek.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMG_0334.jpg\")
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