I walked more than six miles in the desert around Quartzite, Arizona today. It has only been 70° F here for the past two days, so I took advantage of the mild weather. It's hard to believe it's supposed to be 102° this coming weekend. We're leaving here for cooler weather tomorrow, so I was glad I got to take a nice long tour of the area today. I took some pictures to share.
Photo Captions:
1) This saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) is about 30 feet (9 meters) tall. Saguaros live more than 150 years and this one must be pretty close to that age.
2) Teddy bear cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii) are so named because they look fuzzy from all the spines covering their stems. The spines have microscopic barbs which make them painful and difficult to remove if you get stuck. You must be careful to watch your step around these plants, because the stems detach easily and fall to the ground and become cholla balls. These balls can take root and grow into new plants, which is the plant's main method of reproduction. This plant has a cholla ball sitting next to it (bottom-right).
3) Here's a close-up of the cholla ball. When stuck to an animal these balls can be carried quite a distance since they aren't easily removed. Desert pack rats use these balls to defend against most predators, like the kit fox and coyotes. They gather the balls and place them around their borrows.
4) Rush Skeletonplant (Lygodesmia Juncea)
5) Slenderleaf iceplants (Mesembryanthemum nodiflorum) are an introduced species here in the Desert Southwest. They're native to the arid regions of Palestine, Jordan, Africa and Croatia, but are showing up in other parts of the world now.
6) These flowers are on a honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) tree. Mesquite seed pods look like green beans and can be dried and ground into a flour that is high in protein and carbohydrates. The flour can be used in place of wheat flour, and was used by Native Americans to make cakes. They also used the needles to make tattoos.
7) If you see notch-leaved phacelia (Phacelia crenulata), don't touch it! It can cause an itchy, painful rash like poison ivy.
8) Barrel cacti (Ferocactus cylindraceus) are a threatened species. Because of their beauty they have been over collected by plant collectors. Their natural habitats are also being lost to the clearing of land for wind farms and solar power plants.
9) Desert senna (Senna covesii) is a shrub that stays leafless most of the year. The plants I found today had leaves.
10) I probably shouldn't have included this picture, because it's not so pretty, but it's one of the things you see out here in the wilderness. I found this carcass near the road. I'm not sure what animal it used to be, or if it was a road kill that was scavenged. It was picked pretty clean though. There are plenty of coyotes and buzzards out here, so they likely had a picnic here.
