Desert Blooms

Though rainfall has been below normal through most of Southern California this season, it has fallen rather regularly, with decent rains every few weeks since December.  This has produced a respectable number of flowers.  This is a datura, in Anza-Borrego Desert SP.

Some early buckhorn cholla blooms.

Looking up at the palms in Borrego Palm Canyon, one of many oases in the vast state park.  These are California fan palms, the only species of palm tree native to Cali.

A fine cholla flower.  I love the intricacy of the blooms.  Ma Nature certainly knows how to create a masterpiece.

Desert dandilions.

Barrel cactus flowers.

My flower guide says this fine bloom is from a Ganders cholla.  Several species of cholla look pretty much alike yet have flowers of different colors.

Here's yet another cholla color variation.

A finely blooming paloverde in a dry wash east of Indio, up against a cool cliff.

Chuparosa.  This is in Joshua Tree NP.

A Mojave yucca in bloom.  Notice the ladybug working the flower complex.  There were actually several ladies among the flowers but only this one shows up in the pic.

Fine beavertail cactus.  This and the hedgehog are among the first cacti to bloom in profusion and overlap with the wildflowers.  In general most cactus flowers bloom after the wildflowers, so that in a good year the desert blooms from February through at least May.

And here's a nice hedgehog cactus.