Natural History Wanderings

A new wildflower report  for Boyce Thompson Arboretum and surrounding area in Arizona.

Flowers to see and photograph this week include elderberry, tomatillo, Colorado four oclock, white ratany, prickly phlox and mustard evening primrose — and the seasons first prickly pear cactus blossoms “The Yellow Rose of Texas” are starting to appear. Two more guided wildflower walks are scheduled for this Spring: April 14 & 22, at 11am. These and other Arboretum nature walks are included with $9 daily admission.

Where to find this weeks colorful blossoms? Elderberry Sambucus mexicana is the tall shrub with white lace doilies of flower clusters just as you enter the hummingbird-butterfly garden; also watch for em along silver king wash and queen creek. They have abundant flowers this year — will elderberry fruit production be equally robust? Tomatillo fruits are ripe and juicy — bright red berries the size of coffeebeans add bursts of color to the otherwise inconspicuous Anderson Thornbush Lycium andersonii this year. Watch for cliff chipmunks, black-throated sparrows and other photogenic little resident critters to feast on these ephemeral fruits while theyre ripe and available. Prickly phlox Eriastrum diffusum are blooming above the quincho, small plants which can carpet the ground with pale blue star-shaped flower clusters in a good year. Showy mariposa lilies are more numerous than in recent memory – Monday there were three nice mariposas blooming above the trail and at left as you approach the Ayer Lake overlook. Delphinium are having a good year, too; look for the big, spreading patch at right while walking eastbound and uphill above Ayer Lake just as you approach the Picket Post Mansion overlook. While descending down the switchbacks section of trail watch for mustard evening primrose Camissonia brevipes.

White Ratany adds color along the curandero trail and a special guided ethnobotany tour of the Curandero Trail on Saturday, April 14, at 1:30 p.m. brings a chance to meet author Jean Groen and learn about ethnobotanical uses of ratany and other trailside plants. Watch for asparagus-spear-shaped stalks of golden-flowered agaves Agave chrysantha in various places from the cactus garden up towards the mansion, and Colorado Four OClock blooming strong, and right on schedule, beneath the shade of towering red gum trees in the eucalyptus forest.

Cactus blossoms worth visiting to see this week include a rare Claret Cup hedgehog Echinocereus triglochidiatus, var. Arizonicus with vivid red flowers easily photographable in the raised bed where the Main Trail crosses Silver King Wash. Native Boyce Thompson Hedgehog cacti named in honor of the parks founder are flowering as you walk the main trail above Ayer Lake.

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 Parrys 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.

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 Coulters, Bajada & Silver and see Western Dayflower, hot-pink Parrys 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.

DOWN ALONG QUEEN CREEK in the shaded riparian area the trail is bordered by thickets of Blue Phacelia Wild Heliotrope, Phacelia distans that will be quite impressive during mid-April. 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 waters edge where the trail is closes to Queen Creek — and narrowest, running between chain-link fence and rock cliff faces.

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 — and the unusual greenish-yellow flowering euphorbia known as Woodland Spurge.

Read more at:  Wildflowers at Boyce Thompson Arboretum.