Wow! Let me guess... this is not Virginia is it? :)
Somewhere in the southern hemisphere, perhaps? I'll be curious to learn more about where this is and what you were doing there. Some of those plants are straight out of Dr. Seuss.

I'm guessing Szechuan province.

Maybe the Blue Ridge Mountains along the Parkway? If they were THAT close I'd hop in my car and have a close-up encounter of my own! Please tell us the general locale--no need for specific details.........everyone will flock there and destroy it in no time.

Thank you so much for capturing Mother Nature's roots of the 'domesticated perennials' we all love. Absolutely gorgeous (and the photographer ain't bad either!)

China? Wow, remarkable beauty. I hope it stays that way.

No , they are not peonies. It is a species of Podophyllum. I have one with pink flowers. The yellow poppy looks like a Meconopsis, may be M. integrifolia , pseudointegrifolia or autumnalis. They grow in Tibet, Nepal and Yunnan, China.

It's difficult to find pics of all the meconopsis...I was thinking possibly M. napaulensis. I've been searching pics of the Himalayan area for that bridge. Stunning landscape.

Not the Himalayans, the trip was to a section of the Northern Hengduan Mountains of Szechuan and Yunnan.

Who can ID fish? This is a very cool black fish.

{{gwi:267539}}

... and this one - a strange dog breed.

{{gwi:267540}}

The snow peak! I love it.

{{gwi:267541}}

A species Rhody which is bluish colored -

{{gwi:267542}}

Pseudo-lily or something -

{{gwi:267543}}

{{gwi:267545}}

{{gwi:267546}}

{{gwi:267547}}

{{gwi:267548}}

{{gwi:267549}}

What is this?

{{gwi:267550}}

The bluish rhododendron looks like R. Augustinii. The white and yellow lily was bought by me with a name L.xanthellum var. luteum

Wieslaw, if you have those, then you must have these tiny babies:

{{gwi:267551}}

{{gwi:267552}}

Also, the last picture in the previous series is said to be a local fritillaria. It is so tall!

The light pink lily can be L. wardii, or an unknown one. There is probably still a multitude of totally unknown(to western civilization) plants in China

Beautiful pics Snax. A testament to the amazing diversity and beauty of this planet!

Wow! Such amazing beauty - thanks for posting :0)

According to BBC documentary, many great mountain ranges block moisture from reaching inland, such as the great divide range of Australia, the Andes and the Himalayas.

{{gwi:267553}}

However, Mt Hengduan goes in parallel to the path of monsoon. It channels tropical moisture into temperate regions. This explains the bio-diversity. Some big name living fossils survive in the region despite the fierce competition of the continent: the panda, the dawn redwood, the ginkgo, the dove tree, magnolias, camellias, rhododendrons, etc.

Interesting...thank you!

Thoroughly enjoyed my virtual visit, thanks so much!

An old tale from Quarryhill: (quote) The first time that I collected seed of Magnolia wilsonii was in the fall of 1992 on Niba Shan in western Sichuan. Hans Fliegner and Martin Staniforth from Kew, and Charles Howick and I were on our way to Muli in southwestern Sichuan. Our guide from the Chengdu Institute of Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences had told us that it occurred on Niba Shan, so we stopped on our way to take a look. We hunted for hours through dense forest and finally came upon one good sized 10 meter high tree. After a thorough search of the tree, we found only one fruit with six good seeds. We divided these three ways and found out later that Kew successfully germinated one seed, Howick one, and Quarryhill only one. I went over the same mountain two years later in the fall of 1994, this time with Charles Erskine and Hans Fliegner from Kew, and Charles Howick. We were all shocked to see the area where we had found the magnolia two years previously completely denuded and being planted with a monoculture of spruce. We did manage to make a seed collection of Magnolia wilsonii later during that expedition in 1994. On our return to Chengdu, we decided to stop at Luoji Shan. Unlike my recent visit there, this time we were on the other side of the picturesque range. This was long before Luoji Shan was made a Nature Reserve. Now there is a cable car and stone steps bringing thousands of tourists up into this botanical paradise. I first visited Luoji Shan with Charles Howick in 1990 and hadn't noticed any magnolias then. On that first visit we had started from a small Yi village and climbed for days with porters and horses carrying our gear over the rugged steep mountains. However, on our second visit, despite torrential rain, we spotted an area that we had overlooked before just above the village. Here, there were several Magnolia wilsonii, though few had seed. Our frustration with the lack of seeds was further exacerbated by their failure afterward to germinate. That one seed that germinated from our 1992 expedition is now a healthy three meter high tree at Quarryhill, as wide as it is tall. Growing in Sonoma Valley in our rocky acidic soil, in mostly sun with a little light shade from a Toona sinensis, it flowers heavily and consistently year after year. I frequently bring visitors to see it, not just for its beauty and delightful fragrance, but more importantly to tell the story of how it is disappearing from the wild.