Natural History Wanderings

Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association has a new wildflower update for Henderson Canyon:

 This is an easy hike, you can just hike the first part of the wash, or hike to the end of the canyon (about 4 hours return).  We found here some blooming cactus: 5 blooming barrels and 4 blooming beaver tails.

In the first part you see many wildflowers, then they seem to reduce, but after a short while they increase again.  Lots of pygmy poppy, wild heliotrope, desert dandelion, bigelow’s monkey flower (some of them still very small, don’t step on them) trailing windmill, brown eyed evening primrose, desert chicory, lupine, chia, popcorn flower, false mustard, parish’s gold poppy, bluebell, purple mat, lance leafed ditaxis, desert pincushion, short wing deer weed.

Further in the wash/canyon you also find: desert apricot, parish’s golden eyes, desert rock pea, spectacle pod, white fiesta flower, fiddle neck, fountain grass and rock crossosoma. The bigelow’s monkey flowers are much larger here and you find more parish’s gold poppy’s.

Read all of their reports at:  Anza-Borrego Wildflowers Spring – Fall 2013.