100 Desert Wildflowers in Natural Color

Part 1

100 Desert Wildflowers in natural color

Photography & Text Natt N. Dodge

SOUTHWESTERN MONUMENTS ASSOCIATION

Copyright 1963 by the Southwestern Monuments Association. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-13471 First Printing, 1963—20,000 Second Printing, 1965—20,000 Third Printing, (revised) 1967—20,000

Printed in the United States of America W. A. Krueger Co., Tyler Div. · Phoenix, Arizona

Contents

Hints for Flower Photographers 1 Introduction 1 The Desert 1 Why and When Do Deserts Bloom? 1 Identifying Desert Wildflowers 3 Spring gives an Evening Party 4 1. Longleaf ephedra 5 2. Common reed 5 3. Prairie spiderwort 6 4. Desertlily 6 5. Mariposa 7 6. Golden mariposa 7 7. Desert mariposa 8 8. Soaptree yucca 8 9. Joshua-tree 9 10. Torrey yucca 9 11. Giant yucca 10 12. Sacahuista 10 13. Sotol 11 14. Agave 11 15. Parry agave 12 16. Lechuguilla 12 17. Canaigre 13 18. Trailing-four-o’clock 13 19. Sand-verbena 14 20. Mexican goldpoppy 14 21. Pricklepoppy 15 22. Evening-primrose 15 23. Spectaclepod 16 24. Bladderpod 16 25. Western-wallflower 17 26. False-mesquite 17 27. Catclaw-acacia 18 28. Mescat-acacia 18 29. Honey mesquite 19 30. Senna 19 31. Blue palo-verde 20 32. Bird-of-Paradise-flower 20 33. Lupine 21 34. Adonis lupine 21 35. Smoke-thorn 22 36. Dalea 22 37. Tesota 23 38. Woolly loco 23 39. Heron-bill 24 40. Creosotebush 24 41. Arizona-poppy 25 42. Desert-mallow 25 43. Five-stamen tamarisk 26 44. Yellow mentzelia 26 45. Rock-nettle 27 46. Night-blooming cereus 27 47. Saguaro 28 48. Organpipe cactus 28 49. Claretcup echinocereus 29 50. Strawberry echinocereus 29 51. Rainbow echinocereus 30 52. Yellow pitaya echinocereus 30 53. Barrel cactus 31 54. Fishhook cactus 31 55. Beavertail cactus 32 56. Engelmann pricklypear 32 57. Jumping cholla 33 58. Pencil cholla 33 59. Whipple cholla 34 60. Walkingstick cholla 34 61. Evening-primrose 35 62. Ocotillo 35 63. Field bind-weed 36 64. Santa Fe phlox 36 65. Starflower 37 66. Phacelia 37 67. Nama 38 68. Buffalobur 38 69. Silverleaf nightshade 39 70. Sacred datura 39 71. Tree tobacco 40 72. Ceniza 40 73. Desert beardtongue 41 74. Palmer penstemon 41 75. Paintbrush 42 76. Owl-clover 42 77. Desert-willow 43 78. Trumpet-bush 43 79. Louisiana broomrape 44 80. Coyote-melon 44 81. Snake-weed 45 82. Desertstar 45 83. Mohave aster 46 84. Fleabane 46 85. Broom baccharis 47 86. Desert zinnia 47 87. Brittle-bush 48 88. Silverleaf enceliopsis 48 89. Crown-beard 49 90. Douglas coreopsis 49 91. Paperflower 50 92. Desert baileya 50 93. Goldfields 51 94. Chaenactis 51 95. Douglas groundsel 52 96. New Mexico thistle 52 97. Desert dandelion 53 98. Malacothryx 53 99. White cupfruit 54 100. Prickly sowthistle 54 Suggestions for Additional Reading 56 Index 58

Hints for Flower Photographers

If your interest in desert flowers includes a desire to obtain beautiful photographs of them, the following “tips” may be helpful.

MOTION is a major hazard in still photography, and flowers, especially those on long, slender stems, seem to be constantly in motion stimulated by the ever-present desert breeze. The practical solution to this problem is to take your photographing jaunts, if possible, in the early morning when the air is most likely to be motionless. A flower picture blurred by motion is a complete flop!

Except for motion, nothing will irritate you more often than the abrupt, frequent, and marked CHANGES IN LIGHTING due to small clouds passing over the sun. Again, early morning has an advantage in normally cloudless desert skies. Clouds may be expected after 10 o’clock on many days.

DEPTH OF FIELD is highly important in flower photography, and you will be gratified with the results if you take pains to have all parts of the picture, except the background, in sharp focus. This desirable objective has become less difficult to attain with the advent of “faster” films which enable you to use the required small diaphragm “stop” without too greatly reducing the shutter speed, and still obtain adequate exposures.

Too many flower photographers fail to get really CLOSE UP PICTURES. A single blossom or a small cluster of blossoms provides a much more attractive and significant picture than an entire plant. One blossom with, perhaps, a bud, one fruit, and a trace of foliage, if well composed, is tops among flower pictures. This objective requires camera equipment with the ability to focus on objects close to the lens. Also it complicates the goal of getting all parts of the picture into sharp focus.

UNCLUTTERED BACKGROUNDS are a “must” in flower pictures. You might consider joining the flower photographers who carry with them plain gray or variously tinted background cards or light-weight boards. Such a card or board of contrasting color, when placed behind the blossom, will accomplish wonders in giving prominence to the flower. One method of obtaining a dark background is to ask someone (if you are a contortionist you can do it yourself) to stand in such a position as to cast a shadow on the ground or foliage behind the subject. The sky makes an excellent background, and you will find it useful whenever you can set your camera below the level of the subject.

With the foregoing points in mind, study the pictures in this booklet with the aim of trying to surpass them in quality. By exercising care and patience, you should be able to do so.

Introduction

The Desert

When Webster defined a desert as a “dry, barren region, largely treeless and sandy” he was not thinking of the 50,000 square mile Great American Desert of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Most of it is usually dry and parts may be sandy, but as a whole, it is far from barren and treeless. Heavily vegetated with gray-green shrubs, small but robust trees, pygmy forests of grotesque cactuses and stiff-leaved yuccas, and myriads of herbaceous plants, the desert, following rainy periods, covers itself with a blanket of delicate, fragrant wildflowers. Edmund C. Jaegar, author of several books on deserts, reports that the California deserts alone support more than 700 species of flowering plants.

The late Dr. Forrest Shreve, for many years Director of the Desert Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution near Tucson, Arizona, defined a desert as “a region of deficient and uncertain rainfall.” He divided the Great American Desert into four major sections: (1) Chihuahuan (chee-WAH-wahn), including the Mexican States of Chihuahua and Coahuila (coa-WHEE-lah), southwestern Texas, and south-central New Mexico; (2) Sonoran, including Baja California, southwestern Arizona, and northwestern Sonora; (3) Mojave (moh-HAH-vee), Colorado, including south-eastern California and extreme southern Nevada; (4) Great Basin, including Nevada, Utah, southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon.

Since the steppes and mesas of the Great Basin Desert have generally lower temperatures, higher elevations, and greater precipitation than the other three sections, we are not including its flowers in this work.

Why and When Do Deserts Bloom?

The Great American Desert produces, when conditions are favorable, a gorgeous exhibition of wildflowers. Trees, shrubs, and herbs all contribute to the splendor of the display. Soil composition, slope and exposure, suitable temperatures, and adequate moisture are essential to plant growth and flower production.

Moisture is the uncertain factor, and years may pass without enough rainfall to stimulate plant growth. Rain of less than 0.15 inch is wasted as far as desert plants are concerned, for the moisture evaporates before penetrating the soil. Some annuals produce seeds having water-soluble germination inhibitors in their coverings, hence fail to sprout, even after rain, unless the moisture totals at least half an inch.

When soil moisture from December and January rainfall is enough to support potential plants it dissolves the seed coats, and the desert floor is soon carpeted with eager green seedlings. When winter rains are scant, as is so often the case, the dormant seed population fails to germinate and the spring flower display doesn’t appear. There is no sure way to forecast a spectacular blossom year, for a sudden cold wave or period of drying winds may literally nip in the bud a potential season of brilliant bloom. A great flower year may occur only once in a decade.

Perennials are more dependable than annuals, since some of them, particularly cactuses and other succulents, have water storage tissues in their stems or roots. These perennials may be counted on to blossom each year, but with much less abandon than after winters of above normal precipitation. Many perennials have surprisingly extensive root systems. Fascinating are the ways by which plants manage to thrive under severe conditions of desert heat and drought. As we have seen, most annuals lie dormant as seeds until suitable moisture and temperature occur. Then they grow very rapidly, to bloom and mature seeds while the soil still has moisture. Winter rains produce spring-blooming ephemerals, and summer showers produce summer “quickies.”

Another group of plants, including the ocotillo (oh-koh-TEE-yoh), slows down life processes to become dormant during dry periods, even to dropping all leaves. When rains come they put on new leaves, several times a year if necessary.

Continue reading 100 Desert Wildflowers in Natural Color free in the Wunder reader →