Natural History Wanderings

DesertUSA has the following new wildflower reports for Arizona

Feb. 24 Lake Pleasant Regional Park

 No great flower fields, but a lot of excellent macro opportunities are available now along the Pipeline Canyon and Yavapai Point trails at Lake Pleasant Regional Park (use the North Entrance) north of Phoenix. I saw the following genera in bloom: Eschscholzia (poppy), Gilia, Pectocarya, Anemone, Lupinus, Sphaeralcea (globemallow), Calliandra (fairyduster), Eriogonum, Orobanche, Trixis, Eucrypta, Pholistoma (fiesta flower), Senna, Encelia (brittlebush), Lesquerella, Marina, Dichelostemma, Simmondsia (jojoba), Ditaxis, and Ambrosia… and a few others unidentified or about to bloom (in bud). This is a great trail right now, and should be for the next few weeks.

Feb. 24 Picacho Peak 

Sunset Vista Trail, Picacho Peak. The poppies are a bit further along than last weekend, but still not the dense blankets some may hope for. Lupine were a few inches taller but, again, not all that dense. Brittlebush everywhere. I’m no botanist, but I get the impression that one more rain event wouldn’t be a bad thing. Plenty of other sporadic flowers to be found if you look

Feb. 23 Boyce Thompson Arboretum

There’s a lavender-pink variant of Apricot Globemallow at left where the Main Trail crosses Silver King Wash. The CACTUS GARDEN has scattered lupines, desert marigolds and canaigre (wild rhubarb), but most impressive are twin stalks on Pulque Agaves, already 10-feet tall, and likely to reach twice that height. At AYER LAKE watch for Mormon Tea and Jojoba shrubs flowering; also a patch of ‘dandelion-like’ Sow Thistle blooming near the wooden shade ramada near the dam. The main trail above the lake has rhyolite bush (crossosoma), and a thick patch of Purple Bladderpod (lesquerella). As you approach picketpost mansion look for blue-purple flower clusters atop thin stalks of BlueDicks (also known as covena, or wild hyacinch). Below the ‘Switchbacks’ blue phacelia is robust – but not flowering yet. Watch for wild cucumber, henbit and more rhyolite bush alond the riparian corridor where the main trail is parallel to Queen Creek. The BEST WILDFLOWER COLOR to be seen is along the High Trail; thickets of miner’s lettuce are at peak right now along with patches of purple bladderpod just west of the suspension bridge – plus wallflower & desert phlox at the middle section of the High Trail. Watch the patch of Desert Anemone at the west end of this trail – near the trailside bench where you can sit with a fine view of the Eucalyptus forest and the stone labrynth. Over the years staff have learned this is the one place to reliably find Desert Anemone at BTA – and these ephemeral flowers will soon be gone.

Feb. 24 Pacheco State Park –

We saw fields with numbers of shooting stars, yellow violets, popcorn flowers and blue dicks. Fiddlenecks were just starting to bloom. Some small lupine flowers on short stems were present but not obvious. Other flowers (saxifrage and purple sanicle for example) were present in smaller numbers. At the end of Dinosaur Point Road near the San Luis Reservoir, we parked in a large parking lot on the left side of the road. We walked up a hillside behind the restrooms and saw lots of flowers on that hillside.

Feb. 24 Linda Vista Trail, Oro Valley.

A lot more going on in the past week. I don’t know if this morning rain had anything to do with it. The Ocotillo are just about ready. Also saw Bluedicks, Fairy Duster, Fiddlenecks.