The Desert Southwest: Days 6 and 7, Back on the Road

Somewhere west of Austin, Texas the U.S. turns into a desert. Lush, in a low-to-the-ground desert sort of way, deserts gardens lined the interstate in the Lone Star State, ebbing and flowing as the miles piled up. By the time we got to the California border a few days later, my wife and I spotted another 58 new wildflowers, taking our total to 168.

Our drive took across southern New Mexico into Arizona, where we spent two nights so that we could go bird watching in Ramsey Canyon near the Mexican border. Though I was a little more focused on new birds at this time, I didn't miss out on too many wildflowers.

I think the single flower which most excited me was Parry's Penstemon, which we first saw along the interstate in Arizona; it was a sudden and startling explosion of shades of pinkish-red. Since we weren't sure if we would see it again, we made a u-turn and circled back for a closer look.

Parry's Pentsemon (Penstemon parryi is, as we should all know by now, a member of the Snapdragon, or Figwort (Scrophulariaceae Family, a clan of wildflowers I knew little about until I got west of the Rockies. And penstemons seem to have become my latest favorite wildflower. This species, one of more than three dozen species found in Arizona, has bluish-green, fleshy leaves that are nearly as eye-catching as the spray of brightly colored flowers. The tubular flowers, which grow to nearly an inch in length, attract hummingbirds.

It grows along roadsides, mountain canyons, and well-drained slopes in the southern part of the state; we did see it again, in abundance around Sierra Vista, AZ. It blooms from February into April.

We also saw a couple of lupine species, Bajada lupine (L. concinnus) and Shorstem lupine (L. brevicaulis). The first, a small, fuzzy lupine with two-tone flowers - the banner is white with yellow in the center while the wings are lilac-colored - is a desert species I've seen in Red Rock Canyon and Short Canyon, in the western Mojave desert of California. And being a desert species means the flowers got to get bloomed and pollinated before it gets too brutally hot.

Shorstem lupine was something brand new.

It usually turns up on sandy slopes in the Rockies as well as the southwestern U.S. It has short, reddish stems; the leaves have narrow, lance-like leaflets, which have long, bristly hairs (except the upper leaflets, which are bare). The flowers are "Pendragon" purple ... that is what most folks would call royal purple, but "Pendragon" has a bit more of an occasion to it. The banners have a somewhat squared white or yellow patch, with some dark flecks thrown in. It blooms from April into July.

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