Eastern Mojave Vegetation Yant Pit Canyon, Clark County, Nevada.
 
Gazetteer

Query:

See also: Nay Canyon. Yank Pit Canyon.

See also: Virgin Mountains.

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Canyon in the Virgin Mountains of Clark County, Nevada. Name does not appear in the GNIS nor does it appear on maps published since the 1950's. I have also reviewed the geological literature published since 1950, and found no references to the canyon by name.

"Yant" is a Piute name for Agave deserti or A. utahensis, so this name refers to a canyon with a lot of agave roasting pits.

Philip A. Munz and a graduate student, N. C. Sweet, collected in this canyon on 4 June 1941, collecting several species of interest. There is a rare bryophyte, Trichostomum sweetii (E. B. Bartram) L. R. Stark, that Sweet collected. There is rare form of Agave utahensis collected by P. A. Munz. And, there is a collection Swertia albomarginata that attracted my interest.

Quoting from Stark (2007):

Two main canyons enter the Virgin Mountains on the south side; both are unnamed on any official map. One of these is the obvious entry point for Munz’s group since it has a road most of its length and was the site of the “Nay Summer Camp.” This area is called “Nay Canyon” in Armstrong’s thesis and has many of the plants collected by Munz on his trip as well as good bryophyte habitat on the north-facing slopes. It is a bit puzzling though, because it does not have an obvious “east fork” at the elevations listed by Munz. Another canyon with no name parallels “Nay Canyon” just to the west. This other canyon is also promising because it has a more obvious “east fork” and while it remains roadless it is still relatively accessible. Also, according to W. Niles (personal communication) “Yant Pit Canyon” may be one of the lower canyons in that area and is probably not the same as "Nay Canyon.”

Latitude: 36.5536 Longitude: -114.1098 (° decimal)

Articles that refer to this location:

 

Literature Referring To This Location:

  • Lawton, Elva. 1958. Mosses of Nevada. The Bryologist. 61(4):314-334. Refers to a collection of a moss in Yant Pit Canyon, unknown whether the location of the canyon is actually given.
  • Post, Douglas M. 1956. Studies in the Gentianaceae: Frasera and Swertia of North America. Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. 1956..
  • Stark, Lloyd R. 2007. An Evaluation of the Non-vascular Plants of Concern in Clark County. Clark County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan Grant. Final Report. An excerpt of this report was provided to me by David Charlet.
  • Stark, Lloyd R., and Alan T. Whittemore. 2000. Bryophytes from the northern Mojave Desert. I. A list of reported species. Southwestern Naturalist. 45: 226-232. Reports a collection of bryophyte Trichostomum sweetii (Bartr.) Stark. NV, Clark Co., Virgin Mts, Yant Pit Canyon (Bartram 1945, as Weissia sweetii Bartr.) BARTRAM, E. B. 1945. A new Weissia and a new Tortula from southwestern United States. Bryologist, 48: 90-92.

Species collected at or near this location.

This list summarizes plants collected or observed at this specific, named location. It does not include plants collected or observed at nearby named or unnamed locations. It may be more instructive to use the Area Lists that contain this location.

  • TAS – The plant was collected by Tom Schweich.
  • Oth – The plant was collected by someone, but not Tom.
  • Obs – The plant was observed, but not collected.

Gentianaceae

Frasera albomarginata S. Watson. (Oth)

Agavaceae

Agave utahensis (Engelm.) Gentry. Utah Agave (Oth)

Poaceae

Aristideae

Aristida purpurea Nutt. nealleyi (Vasey) Allred. Blue Threeawn (Oth)

Total number of taxa: 3
Native Taxa:
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Exotic Taxa:
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Nativity Undetermined:
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Listed Weeds:
Identified as Weed 		0
If you have a question or a comment you may write to me at: tomas@schweich.com I sometimes post interesting questions in my FAQ, but I never disclose your full name or address.  

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Date and time this article was prepared:8:16:03 AM, 7/13/2024.