When you think of desert wildflowers, cacti are probably the first things that come to mind, but they are certainly not the only show in town. (Besides, I've already written about cacti.) A couple of wildflowers that fall in close behind any cactus - in my mind, anyway - are Ocotillo and Chuparosa. Both strut their stuff in the form of bright flowers on big, imposing plants.
Chuparosa (Justicia californica) is a member of the Acanthus Family (Acanthaceae). Its common name is from the Spanish for "hummingbird" according to some sources, "sucking rose" according to others. In any case, the one and a half inch, nectar-filled tubular flowers are popular among hummingbirds. Goldfinches, warblers, and orioles also drink the nectar; sparrows and linnets bite off the flowers and eat the nectar-filled bases.
Known locally as Honeysuckle, Chuparosa was reputed to once have been a food source to Native Americans.
It grows along low-elevation washes, reaching a height of about 6 feet. It is often just as wide. It's a grayish-green, densely branched shrub, mostly leafless and garishly decorated with red blossoms. It can be found in southeastern California into southern Arizona, down into northwestern Mexico.
Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens) is one of the dozen or so species in the single genus of the Ocotillo Family (Fouquieriaceae), and what a species it is. It's a kind of funnel-shaped shrub, erupting up out of the ground in a spiny, almost completely unbranched, straight-stemmed spray of botany. And it can be as tall as thirty feet!
Its bright green leaves and bright flowers, which blossom in tight clusters at the tip of each stem, appear after rain, usually during the spring, but sometimes throughout the summer and into the fall. Otherwise it's usually leafless and blossomless, fooling folks into thinking it's a cactus.
It is truly a desert plant, growing in rocky, well-drained slopes from southeastern California over to west Texas, and down in northern Mexico. It is protected in California and Arizona, and thus cannot be collected.
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