Fertile frond of Cinnamon Fern Osmunda cinnamomea (?)
Common hawkweed Hieracium lachenalii
Orange hawkweed Hieracium aurantiacum
Pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea
Yellow flag Iris pseudacorus
Tag Archives: Plants
A Costa Rican Mallow
My best guess is that this flower is from a mallow (Malvaceae) because of its bizarrely stalked reproductive parts. This was common along the banks of Rio Claro, Corcovado National Park.
Ocotillo wash
Some desert plants in Ocotillo Wash, Joshua Tree National Park.
Happy New Year
An open desert flower in the dry season.
Prescribed or wild fire?
Much of the vegetation on the Lost Horse Mine Trail had burnt during the previous season, but it was unclear whether it was intentionally prescribed, natural, or caused by visitors. It made for some cool photos though.
Yucca
Flowering and fruiting stalk
Joshua Trees
Yucca brevifolia
The Cholla Garden
The Colorado Desert in Joshua Tree National Park looked extremely patchy with respect to plant species distributions. There were large areas clearly dominated by a single species, such as Ocotillo and Cholla. Further, like other desert plants, the plants appeared to be distributed uniformly within patches.
Here’s a beautiful example of a dense patch of Cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii).
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Cholla
Beyond the Ocotillo wash and patch, there were a few extremely spiny plants along the road in Joshua Tree National Park that caught my eye. I stopped to photograph this one, just before coming to the Cholla Garden, which, at the time, I wasn’t aware of.
Teddy-bear Cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii) is anything but friendly. I received a few barbed spines in my finger as I explored the cactus’ branching and green stem.
