Rafinesquia neomexicana

 

Rafinesquia neomexicana (desert chicory) ( )

Asteraceae

  • A white-flowered spring bloomer, this annual shares a few superficial features with the blue-flowered perennial chicory introduced from Europe and now widespread throughout much of America. Desert chicory is short but profusely branching and has deeply divided, arrow-shaped leaves. In wet winters, it becomes abundant upon plains, gentle bajadas, and mesas, from 200 feet in the desert, to its grassland edge above 3, 000 feet. In some dry years, it may fail altogether even when other herbs flower. Its bloom may stretch from March to May. "Arizona Highways Presents Desert Wildflowers, 1988."
  • Direct sowing/ No treatment needed/Time of planting: autumn. "Arizona Highways Presents Desert Wildflowers, 1988".
  • Arizona and Texas deserts. Bright white. March-May. California desert. Dull white. April-May. Sunflower family. Size: about a foot high. In early springs that follow winters of more than average rainfall the desert dandelion is one of the conspicuous annuals helping to carpet the deserts with a ground-cover of flowers. Although much more delicate, longer stemmed, and less coarse and robust than the common dandelion, the flowers sufficiently resemble those of the better-known yellow dandelion to stimulate recognition. Desert-dandelion is found below 4,000 feet in desert situations from western Texas to Lower California and northward to southern Utah. "Flowers of the Southwest Deserts. Natt N. Lodge". 

Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas más populares de este blog

Asteraceae

Imagen
Asteraceae The most diverse and ecologically significant family of woody and semi-woody shrubs in creosote bush scrub is the sunflower family. Globally Asteraceae is second only to the Orchidaceae in number of species. Memers of the Asteraceae family are challenging to identify until one becomes familiar with flower structures. The essential feature defining the Asteraceae is the presence of composite flower heads that typically include numerous tiny flowers joined in what, at first, resembles a single large flower-as seen in a familiar sunflower. The typical composite flower head is composed of two types of flowers, although either one of these types may be absent in some genera. The outer whorl of flowers in a typical composite head has three petals fused to form what appears to be a single large petal, while the other two petals are absent. These fused petals of the ray flowers, or ligules, are the attractive structures for pollinators. Ray flowers are almost always female. The inne...
Leer más

Agavoideae

 Agavoideae Joshua trees, along with other of Yucca , have a remarkable pollination system that involves a mutualistic relationship with species of yucca moths ( Tegeticula spp. ). The female yucca moth gathers pollen from yucca flowers using her specially adapted mouthparts. Once she has collected enough sticky pollen, she forms it into a ball which she presses against the stigma of every yucca flower she visits, pollinating these flowers. At the same time, she injects her eggs into the female tissue of the yucca flower. As the fruits of the yucca mature, they produce numerous large seeds and, at the same time, host the developing larvae of the yucca moth. The food sources of these developing larvae are the seeds of the yucca, but the larvae consume only a portion of the seeds. When the larvae are mature, they excavate an exit hole from the fruit, drop to the ground, form a cocoon, and emerge the following year. The undamaged seeds mature and are shed- and under appropriate condit...
Leer más

Fouquieria columnaris

     Fouquieria columnaris  (boojum trees) (cirio) Fouquieriaceae The firs man and woman had children and eventually a number of giants inhabited the land. The land was flat, without mountains or even sand dunes, so it was natural that floods should occur. Floods were accompanied by fire, smoke, and earthquakes. After one such disaster, Hant Caai (land maker) saw that because the land was flat, the people had little chance to escape the destruction. So he sang a song, causing mountains, hills, and dunes to form. These were to provide protection for the people during floods. In one such flood a group of giants from the south fled northward to the mountains south of Puerto Libertad. There the flood overtook them and changed them into boojum trees, which still occur there. The boojum is one of the most unusual plants in the world, looking like an upturned carrot 5 to 10 m tall, with scraggly little secondary branches. It occurs in Baja California and there is an isolate...
Leer más