Mysteries of the Desert Flowers

Wildflower Paradise

"In the wildest nature, there is not only the material of the most cultivated life, and a sort of anticipation of the last result, but a greater refinement already than is ever attained by man."

And that, dear reader, was the key which unlocked the cell in our mind wherein lived the botanist in our lives. Park and garden club nature studies have never turned us on. In working with this issue we have become exposed to enough of the mysteries, miracles and wonders of our wildflowers to see botany as another vehicle on the road to the Beautiful Explanation of Life. The Arizona desert is a perfect place to seek the great truths about Nature and especially about wildflowers. Because of its geographical position, and range of altitude, in which are represented the five basic climatic zones of the wild plant kingdom, Arizona is a paradise for almost 40 percent of the more than 12,000 known flowering plants of the world not grown under cultivation. More than 3,438 species are known and listed in Kearney & Peebles' Arizona Flora, and they represent those of nearly every part of North America. There are still new species to be discovered in remote, unexplored areas. It's not easy for wildlife truth seekers to find the treasures of wildflowers, for Mother Nature is consistently unpredictable. This year will be a very poor year for Arizona's wild plants, and especially wildflowers. As far as records go 1957 was a peak year so outstanding that more than 250 species were recorded which had not bloomed for 50 years prior. And they haven't been seen since. 1969 was considered a better than average year. Most of the photographs shown in this issue were taken in those years. Nature has endowed our wild plants with devices which will forever be a mystery, even to the most sophisticated scientist, such as the delayed action mechanisms that prevent germination until conditions are ideal, not only for the emerging embryo but also for the sustaining of the adult plant. Also, built-in sensors react only to the adequate amount of rainfall. Temperature regulators are programmed so that all the flowers in any given area will not bloom at one time. Some species will bloom in the hot summer, others during the cool winter season.

To us, the wonder of wonders is the miraculous case of the old seeds of Arctic Lupine which had been found frozen in the Yukon for 10,000 years. Six of them germinated 48 hours after they were planted! One plant flowered after eleven months, and several plants are still growing! Some of our Arizona wildflowers are rare. One species is so rare that only three persons know where it can be found, and no more than a dozen have been counted in one season. (We're not telling where or what they are because more than one species have all but disappeared from the desert as a result of the flowers being cut and removed before the plant seeded.) With no credit due to Man we have no record to date of a species becoming extinct. In the Great Plan man is no match for Nature and the Great Spirit. At times Nature rebels, and for several years in succession the Great Spirit sends little rain. Then, when least expected, snows and rains recycle the process of life again. Nature never intended for humans to understand her, no more than we should ever understand the story of the Resurrection, and the mystery, miracle and wonder of Life itself, whether it be manifest in plant and seed, mother and child, or the cycle of the seasons. Yes indeed, there is nothing like a day in a flower-carpeted desert to convince a man that everything spiritual and material is born of the earth, and Man is no more important to God than the dormant seed waiting to be born again. Adios and please do not pick the wildflowers

Mysteries of the Desert Flowers By Ida Smith

The spring of 1968 in the Wickenburg hills was as though the earth had clothed itself with the rainbow. Not for many years had so many and such a variety of Arizona wild flowers been seen. But not for many years had the rain gods been so generous at just the right times.

Gold poppies carpeted the canyons and climbed the hillsides. Yellow brittlebushes clung to crannied walls and flaunted their brilliant color over hills and canyons. Along Constellation Road apricot mallow, yellow marigolds, and blue lupines grew sturdily together, defying the most inquisitive to discover their secret, how each achieved its own color synthesis from the same gray soil.

In looking across the landscape it would seem to the casual observer as though all the desert shrubs and trees were alike, but close examination reveals that Wickenburg's hills and canyons are covered with an amazing variety of plant life that offers a challenge to botanists, professional and amateur alike.

Snakeweed's yellow blossoms were so decorative in the spring of 1968 that they should have been given a much more glamorous name. In several places we found orange and yellow mariposa lilies, owl clover, goldfields, and white desert zinnias, and later on, large stands of purple asters. In the vicinity of the Vulture Mine were masses of scarlet hummingbird flowers and rare desert lilies.

Over most of the hills and canyons the ground was thickly carpeted with tiny flowers, filaree, rock daisies, purplemat, tiny yellows, and numerous other unknowns. One could hardly step without crushing them. Examination of these tiny blossoms with a magnifying glass reveals an exquisite flowerland.

Among the glories of late April and May were the yellowblossomed creosote bushes, the flaming red panicles of ocotillo, and later the paloverdes. A paloverde tree in full bloom has been described as a "golden symphony of inaudible music."

Hedgehogs and beavertails are among the first of the cacti to bloom. To catch the others, the chollas, other species of prickly pears and the saguaros, one must go weekly and sometimes daily to watch, until the late barrels have blossomed the last of summer.

Wild flowers have differing individual characteristics, many of the reasons for which are still obscure. For example some flowers, such as the poppies, close up at night and open when the sun rises. Others, like the evening primroses, open at night and close soon after sunrise. The ruby-colored chollas, however,