evening snow, Linanthus dichotomus subsp. dichotomus, California, Sierra Nevada, Tungsten Hills, Owens Valley drainage, elevation 1370 m (4490 ft). (Also visible are yellowbuds, Eriophyllum pringlei.)

A reward for an early morning rise: flowers still open with enough light to capture without a flash. (Another more spectacular reward is coming in next weekend's post...)

In wetter spring seasons when this annual appears, it earns its common name soon after sundown by transforming from thready, barely visible plants like the one earlier in this post, to fields of fragrant bright white blossoms. They start closing again as soon as the sky brightens in the morning, and most are fully closed by the time direct sun hits them.

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.