On our four mile walk through the East Saguaro National Park yesterday, I was struck by how much the desert was blooming. Not that it hadn’t been blooming before, but there are even more flowers now that it’s warmed up a little bit.
It’s been really interesting seeing Tucson green-up during March and April. When one is up on a hill or mountain overlooking the valley, the formerly brown and dark olive colors have changed to be uniformly green. During this time the bougainvillea and palo verde have bloomed like mad, as have some barrel cacti, other early cacti, and all types of agave.
So it was really neat to see all the other flowers blooming now that the heat has arrived and made things comfortable (for me and the cacti at least). During the walk, I decided to take pictures of all the different flowering plants. This post is about those flowers I saw during our 4 mile, 98 degree hike (I loved it, but my love – she melted a bit).
I’m going to start with the trees that we saw. No palo verdes are shown here, but those are still blooming all around Tucson dropping their piles of compelling yellow flowers everywhere.
The prickly pear and cholla (choy-ah) are blooming finally. The prickly pear run from pink to light yellow, including a light lemon color. The cholla flowers are mostly a deep red with hints of black, or a bright yellow. Some of the cholla don’t appear to flower but drop new growths onto the ground which then may take root. I think most of the time it doesn’t work out that way; the “nurseries” can be full of dead Cholla babies (to go full Grimm).
There are also a wide assortment of small flowers low to the ground. Some of them are only one quarter inch wide. So cute!
There’s also this special one that appears to be related to tobacco (due to the leaf and flower shape). What’s tobacco doing in the Sonoran desert?
The fairy dusters are long gone, but the other shrubs are just starting out. This included one that has pale brown flowers that look totally fake.
Honorable mention goes to the kings and queens of the dessert; the saguaros that are just getting started on their blooms. Also, the hedgehog and pincushion cacti are in various stages of starting and ending.
Last but not least are some photos of the trails we hiked on. I chose these due to the amount of erosion which helps show the trail. Most of the trail was flat and in full sun.
Beth dumped the rest of her water bottle about 3/4 of the way through the hike because the water become too warm for her. It wasn’t boiling (yet) but it was a perfect tea sipping temperature.
After over 2 weeks of 90+ Fahrenheit (33+ Celsius), the desert appears to have decided spring has sprung
Beautiful!