She’s Out to Save Rare Wildflowers, but First She Has to Find Them
The white Toyota Tacoma bumped along the dirt path, up and down hills, brush scratching the sides of the truck with a high-pitched whine. Naomi Fraga, her hair in pigtail braids under a ball cap, drove like a slightly more cautious Indiana Jones guided by an ancient map.
She stopped the vehicle on a perch overlooking an expanse of boulders and Joshua trees in eastern Kern County, about 170 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
“This is right where they’re supposed to be,” she said.
Dr. Fraga, 43, was on a treasure hunt, but not for gold or jewels. She was scouring the desert for delicate blooms so tiny that they are called “belly flowers,” because botanists must get down on their stomachs to get a proper look at them.
Source: The New York Times
