Natural History Wanderings

Wild in Arizona has posted a new wildflower bloom report.  They described Periodt Mesa, Boyce Thompson Arboretum and Desert Botanic Garden as the current hotspots. They said flowers are also showing at Happy Camp Road near Peachville Mt., Gonzales Pass and along FR459 at Barlett Lake. They said the Poppies are finished on the east side of Peachville Mt. and Silver King Road and that flowers are spotty at Jacob’s Crosscut Trail at Lost Dutchman State Park.  Read their full report with more details at: Wild in Arizona.

Boyce Thomposon Arboretum has a new report with updates since their last posting:

If you drive Highway 60 east to the Arboretum this week watch for wildflowers that border 20 miles of this scenic highway approaching the gardens from Gold Canyon eastwards – a colorful palette of sky-blue lupine, hot-pink Parry’s Penstemon, lemon-yellow globemallow and brittlebush, and feathery pink fairy duster. Here in our gardens native Sonoran Desert wildflowers began showing back in January – and now there are at least two dozen colorful species to see and photograph along the mile-and-a-half long Main Trail.
Photographers looking for big landscapes of flower-covered hillsides should check out the hillsides four miles due north of the Arboretum, in the National Forest on Peachville MountainFlowers on the slopes of Peachville, as in the photograph at left, and also nearby Montana mountain have passed their peak as of March 13, but are still well worth the hike or the drive to see — if you have a high clearance vehicle.

PEACHVILLE MOUNTAIN POPPIES
Back in early February, suprisingly early for the season, Superior residents began to report massive hillsides of lupine and Mexican goldpoppies blooming on Peachville Mountain north of here. Hillside swaths of Mexican Goldpoppies, hundreds of acres worth, cover Peachville Mountain — which are accessed by either of two well-maintained Forest Service dirt roads: Happy Camp Road (off Hewitt Station road), and also the Silver King Mine road closer to Superior.

HERE AT THE ARBORETUM
Camera-ready clumps of Fetid Marigold are trailside immediately as you start down the main trail below the visitor center, then look for vigorous clumps of Wild Rhubarb just past the Smith Building. The Cactus Garden offers the opportunity to compare three blooming lupines (Coulter’s, Bajada & Silver) and see Western Dayflower, hot-pink Parry’s Penstemon, rattlesnakeweed spurge, and Odora (also known as Yerba de Venado, or deer weed). Watch for Chuparosa near the Boojum Trees, and low thickets of Amsinckia (fiddlenecks) just below Ayer Lake.

Walking past and above AYER LAKE watch for native shrubs such as Mormon Tea and Tomatillo, and trailside patches of Purple Bladderpod, Bluedicks, and Phacelia – the latter with its signature “scorpion tail” curled inforescence. Watch for this endemic shrub, too — even though flowers on Rhyolite Bush are past their prime, hundreds of white flowers still cover many our native Crossosoma bigelovii, also known as Ragged Rock Flower. Find these above Ayer Lake and also along the ‘switchbacks’ section of trail that descends below Picketpost Mansion.

DOWN ALONG QUEEN CREEK in the shaded riparian area the trail is bordered by thickets of Blue Phacelia (Wild Heliotrope, Phacelia distans) that aren’t blooming yet, but will be quite impressive here in another week or two. Climbing above are robust vines of Wild Cucumber (Marah gilensis) snaking up and through jojobas and other unwitting host plants — reaching aggressively skyward with green tendrils and clusters of tiny starfish-shaped white flowers. Its hard to believe all that growth happened in less than one month, and that in another few months these ephemeral vines will begin to dried up, fragment and fall back to the earth – disappearing til next Spring. Monkey flower is a rare find – and you can see these small yellow flowers at the water’s edge where the trail is closes to Queen Creek — and narrowest, running between chain-link fence and rock cliff faces.
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  EAST OF THE ARBORETUM IN QUEEN CREEK CANYON
Drivers who continue past the Arboretum and superior, proceeding another two miles up into Queen Creek Canyon on highway 60 can be rewarded with views of vigorous Stachys Coccinea (Red Mint, shown in the photo at left); Tufted Evening primrose, Firecracker Penstemon, Deer Vetch, Rhyolite Bush, fragrant Berberis — and the unusual greenish-yellow flowering euphorbia known as Woodland Spurge.