Natural History Wanderings

Wildflowers at Boyce Thompson Arboretum. has a new posting this week

You’ll see three shades of Globemallow this week (orange, white and pink) along the Main Trail in the Cactus Garden, with Western Dayflower (AKA “Spiderwort”) robust and ready to accent the Cactus Garden with camera-ready blue blossoms. Flower color begins 20-minutes west as you drive towards BTA – don’t miss Highway 60’s impressive roadside flower show through Gold Canyon and Florence Junction where robust lupines and bluedicks, phacelia, globemallow, goldpoppies & desert marigold border the scenic highway.

This week at the Arboretum watch for hot-pink Parry’s Penstemon – and at least four varieties of lupine in bloom (fuzzy little low-to-the-ground Bajada Lupine dominate the cactus garden). Now going into its 4th straight week and still blooming strong, Wild cucumber (Marah gilensis) remains BTA’s most interesting and dramatic endemic plant: with “Jack & The Beanstalk” vines that have climbed their way as high as 12-feet through native jojoba, mesquite and other trees in locations throughout the grounds. Watch for clusters of tiny, off-white, starfish-shaped flowers on these thriving green vines.

Other flowers throughout the park include fetid marigold (yellow); wild rhubarb (green); London rocket (gold) and henbit (purple); as well as bluedicks and Mormon tea (along the main trail from Ayer Lake uphill). Walk the short trail that leadsd behind the Palm Grove to smell the jasmine-sweet and unique perfume of berberis shrubs there.

Our staff report more color each day! Fflowers to seek during the week of March 19-26 include bright patches of blue phacelia along the main trail, below Picketpost Mansion; or walk the high trail to see yellow wallflower and desert anemone . There are still a few flowers on our endemic rhyolite bush (ragged rock flower).

One of the Arboretum’s most interesting and native early-blooming native shrubs is rhyolite bush (AKA Crossosoma bigelovii, or ragged rock flower); most have already peaked, but watch for these trailside above Ayer Lake, along the “switchbacks” below Picketpost Mansion, and also in the Queen Creek riparian corridor.

Wild cucumber remains the most interesting and showy of our spring flowers: with “Jack & The Beanstalk” vines that have climbed their way as high as eight-feet through native jojoba, mesquite and other trees in locations throughout the grounds. Watch for clusters of tiny, off-white, starfish-shaped flowers on these thriving green vines.

Other flowers throughout the park include fetid marigold (yellow); wild rhubarb (green); London rocket (gold) and henbit (purple); as well as bluedicks and native Pipevine (Aristolochia watsonii) and Mormon tea (along the main trail from Ayer Lake uphill) where you’ll also find Four O’Clock. Walk the short trail that leadsd behind the Palm Grove to smell the jasmine-sweet and unique perfume of berberis shrubs there.

BTA’s “first of season” Aristolochia watsonii began blooming last week. This charismatic little plant is easily overlooked, but worth seeking: watch for the one that’s blooming as you walk through the main trail’s narrowest section: inside “the catwalk” where the trail narrows and ischain-link-fenced above queen creek (about 50-yards east of the suspension bridge). One of these unusual Pipevine flowers was open last week, and several more buds were poised to welcome little pollinators. Want to read a wonderful description of this unusual flower? Don’t miss the “rodent’s ear” anecdote posted here:

Here are a few other plants to watch for: miner’s lettuce is growing strong along the high trail; still just seedlings, and not flowering yet — but patches are thick and robust. And Mormon tea is flowering along the main trail from ayer lake uphill. Its worth bringing a magnifying glass (or invert your binoculars!) for a closeup look at these pine-cone-shaped flowers