Natural History Wanderings

Anza- Borrego Desert Natural History Association has two new updates

February 5, 2015 Today the plant seen with the most flowers along Henderson Canyon Road is Baileya pauciradiata, commonly as Colorado Desert Marigold or Laxflower. A member of the Sunflower family (Asteraceae), those seen here are bushy with multiple stems to 18 inches tall. The stems are green, some blue-green. The ray flowers are pale yellow. Also noticed for the first time in this location this year were three healthy-looking Desert Sand Verbena flowers (Abronia villosa). Sand Verbena is a ground-hugging vine with pink and white flowers and sticky hairs that pick up the sand that Sand Verbena thrives in. Its other name is Hairy Sand Verbena. We saw these and hundreds of plants ready to flower, including about two dozen Desert Lilies (Hesperocallis undulta), several of them in bud, about 70 yards north of Henderson Canyon Road and 125 yards west of Coyote Mountain. This a bit east of where flowers have been seen in this big basin in past years. Meanwhile, along the Coyote Canyon Jeep Trail, from the end of DiGiorgio Road to Desert Gardens, the numbers of Spectacle Pod and Peirson’s Evening Primrose have picked up. A few Desert Sand Verbena plants are in flower.

February 5, 2015  Bighorn Canyon  to look for some Bush Milkvetch they had found there last year.  Having found none, they went into another fork where they found several plants including Ocotillo leafing out and two species of Bush Milkvetch in bloom.

See photos and older reports at Anza-Borrego Desert Wildflowers Update.