At the Foot of the April Rainbow

At the Foot of the

Photos by the Author Orion's belt, cold and blue, dips into a western horizon follow ing a sunset of cloudless gold. Antares, red and warm, is al ready taking his place in the colestial parade of the con stellations as they fall into line below the eastern world. Spring has arrived astronomically for the Arizona desert.

But spring has arrived many weeks berore in the warm earth and has started the plant life on its annual riot of growth and color.

To anyone riding along the Arizona highways in any direction from Phoenix in the last of February, for instance be tween Phoenix and Tucson, or eastward toward Apache Junction, and has seen the thick green grass starting at the edge of the borrow pit, carpeting the open spaces between the Creosote bushes and dotted with yellow flowers, spring has certainly arrived.

Winter rains bring spring in winter months for Arizona, with the result that in March when a great part of the east ern and southern states are plagued with cold weather, blizzard and floods, those fortunate to be here in what is called the "Arizona desert," are enjoy ing pleasantly warm days, and the sight of green hill sides or vast acres of waste land covered with flowers of many colors and varieties. While April is a month of flowers in Nature's open spaces in Arizona, the real outburst of cactus blossoms comes about the end of the month, and the first part of May sees probably more desert cacti in bloom than at any other tim There are three plants that are in full bloom in April. The Ocotillo, which is decidedly not a cactus plant, the Hedge Hog cactus, which is a real thorny cac tus and the Nopal or Prickly Pear, also a cactus, are some of the earliest plants to bloom in abundance before the others.

There is the Mariposa Lily, and the Yellow Rock Primrose, that add a brilli ant yellow or orange to hillside, while the ever present Creosote bush, colors the grey desert with its small yellow blossoms. The list of the flowers and cactus plants named will make up in quantity the best part of the desert blooms of April, although there are hun dreds of other genera of the cactus fam ily, and other flowering plants that bloom profusely this month.

The Ocotillo is, perhaps, next to the Creosote bush, the predominate desert plant out in the wide rocky or gravelly spaces. It is not a cactus plant, al though it is entirely covered with sharp thorns. The Ocotillo has been classified as a plant of a family all its own, the nearest relation being the Tamarisk fam ily. The Ocotillo has been given the scien tific name, Foquieria Splendens, and the name is well given, certainly with its long thin wands waving a vermillion bat tle flag to any and all who come near, may it be called splendid, if that is what the Splendens part of the name means. Springing out from a common center

APRIL, 1936 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 13 April Rainbow

at the ground line, a bunch of rods like wands or shafts, thickly studded with sharp thorns, extend upward and out-ward at every angle, from straight up to forty five degrees from the horizon-tal, and toward every point of the com-pass. Dry and brown during dry weather and rattling like a skeleton, but green and full of life after almost any short spell of rainy days, the Ocotillo forms a most peculiar sight. The rod-like wands are of almost uniform length in any one individual plant, but some plants grow very high and spread out more than the usual Ocotillo we see along the highways. In southern Ariz-ona, the Ocotillo will grow to ten or fifteen feet in height with the outward branches about the same length. Way down near the Gulf of California, in the arroyos of the granite ranges of the Pinacate region, there are forests of Ocotillos over twenty feet high with wands three inches thick or more. In April the foot of these granite ranges are red with the Ocotillo clusters along the arroyos.

Ordinarily, the Arizona Ocotillo has branches about three quarters of an inch to one inch in thickness. The Ocotillo has the strange habit of

Desert Cacti Reflect Myriad Colors in Nature's Curved Palette of the Sky

Suddenly breaking out in full leaf when all of the other desert vegetation is brown and dry. A winter shower or a late summer rainstorm passes over the desert, and the dry wands immedi-ately put forth a heavy covering of small, very dark, green leaves, so thick that the heavy sharp thorns are hidden. After a short time and with no more rain, the leaves shrivel up and disappear.

It is in April that our friend the Ocotillo not only puts on his Easter suit of green, but at the end of every long wand, one or two and often three stems shoot out and quickly become covered with small yellowish buds, which upon opening develop into hundred of vermillion colored flowers, of a long belled shape, about an inch or so long.

There are usually two clusters of the red flowers at the end of each wand; each cluster containing almost three hundred blossoms. Sometimes, there are three clusters at the end of the long wand, all waving bravely in the desert breeze like red flags. When it is considered that there are often from fifty to seventy five wands all tipped with the red clusters almost a foot long, it is no wonder that the grey desert brush becomes splashed with the spec-trum vermillion from Natures palette. There are other peculiarities of the Ocotillo. There is no other place except Arizona, where it is native. It originated in the Arizona desert and it goes not far beyond the state lines, and that is where it has migrated to the high deserts of northern Mexico.

trum vermillion from Natures palette. There are other peculiarities of the Ocotillo. There is no other place except Arizona, where it is native. It originated in the Arizona desert and it goes not far beyond the state lines, and that is where it has migrated to the high deserts of northern Mexico.

The Ocotillo is very useful to the Papagoes and other Indians of Arizona. They use the long wands to build houses, fences, corrals, and then for fuel or light. The dry Ocotillo wands are full of resin and the Indians cut off foot lengths into bundles, and use them as candles, from which it has derived the name of the candle wood plant.

The Ocotillo sticks, cut into six foot lengths, make fine sides to the Papagoes house after mud has been piastered with it. Then, after building a fence or cor-ral with the long wands, after a few months of dead and dry existence, the Ocotillo sticks become resigned to the job of keeping the burro or cow out, and decide to start all over again. It takes root at the end in the ground and after the first year or so bursts out with full leaf, red flowers and all, proudly wav-ing its red flag in the breeze as of yore in its rocky canyon home in the desert. Long may this odd but truly native Arizona plant wave his vermillion ban(Continued on Page 20)