page_title: Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness
section_title: Vegetation
hierarchical_section_title: Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness / Vegetation
context_page_description: The Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness is a 112,500 acres wilderness area located in northern Arizona and southern Utah, United States, within the arid Colorado Plateau region. The wilderness is composed of broad plateaus, tall escarpments, and deep canyons.
  The Paria River flows through the wilderness before joining the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry, Arizona.
  The U.S. Congress designated the wilderness area in 1984 and it was largely incorporated into the new Vermilion Cliffs National Monument proclaimed in 2000 by executive order of President Bill Clinton.
  Both the wilderness area and the National Monument are administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management.
  The Colorado Plateau and its river basins are of immense value in the Earth sciences, specifically chronostratigraphy, as the region contains multiple terrain features exposing miles-thick contiguous rock columns that geologists and paleobiologists use as reference strata of the geologic record.
context_section_description: Vegetation in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness can be divided into three different zones of riparian vegetation communities, which run parallel to each side of the river. Plants found closest to the water include cattails, common reeds, sedges, rushes, and horsetails.
  Drier soil farther from the water makes a good environment for woody vegetation which has survived the repeated flooding, such as coyote willow, cottonwood, ash, tamarisk, and seep-willow. This zone is referred to as the "regeneration site" because some of the trees that grow here survive to produce the next generation of mature canopy.
  Beyond the regeneration site trees grow strong and tall. Dominant vegetation includes cottonwood, willow, ash, and tamarisk. This zone is the fringe between riparian and desert uplands, often sharing vegetation like rabbitbrush, Indian ricegrass, arrowweed, and sand dropseed.
  Other vegetation found in the Wilderness include pinyon pine, juniper, boxelder, various species of cactus, and other desert flora.
caption: Seep willow (Baccharis salicifolia)
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