Desert Day Trip - Saguaro Stand

Went to southern California in December and Scott drove me around for picture taking. Today he came out, so it was my turn to show him around. 

I have always wanted to stop along the highway on the way to Superior (or Boyce Thompson SP) and just take pictures.  The sun isn't exactly cooperative toward southbound shots, so we decided to stop again on the way back.

Here's a chain-fruit cholla

 fruit (above) and skeleton of an arm (below)

I do like how the ocotillo leaf out after some decent rain and they stand out when backlit.

As you look at all the saguaros it is seldom you see a 'typical' one with two arms sticking up.

Rock Escheveria

A hike up South Mountain Park's Kiwanis Trail (and then across the road and up a short ways) will get you along side a few of these Escheverias. They aren't very big - the largest I saw was only about 4" across, though I have seen them something close to 8"

Flowers on stalks

Trailing 4 O'Clock

A hearty survivor, at least this particular plant, I have seen this flower over the years at pretty much the same place in South Mountain Park for well over 10 years. Obviously a low-lying plant with a small flower.

Closer up it looks as though the leaves are thick with dust, and that may be the case after the big winds we had last Thursday.

Tucson - Sonoran Desert Museum

This guy was sitting on the rock almost as if he were saying, 'Step right up! This way to see the amazing reptiles.'
And of course, snakes top the billing in the great reptile show.

black rattlesnake speckled rattlesnake

The aviary was really nice. Many birds seemed almost at home in the large enclosure. Perhaps too many doves, but the kids didn't mind that at all.

Pyrrhuloxia or 'grey cardinal' were all over the place. I saw a cardinal in there also, but it was deep in a bush and I couldn't get a shot of it.

Down in the 'cave' they had lots of minerals. In rich ore it only takes about 18 pounds of rock to extract enough copper to make a penny. In poor ore it is more like one or two tons! Here's Erik by a copper cube.
We didn't realize this place opened at 7:30 a.m. or we would have been there about that early. Jake is our early riser and by the time we got there at around 10 a.m. it was already getting warm. Even so, we managed almost 3 hours and didn't get to see nearly everything.

Brittlebush

Give them water and brittlebush can grow into a pretty large shrub, but normally it doesn't get much bigger than 3' x 3'. The flowers grow on long, thin stalks atop the plant. The flowers are some of the larger desert wildflowers and usually quite numerous on any given bush.

You can see how thin the stalks are here.

And a closer look:

Almost forgot to mention; the name 'brittlebush' is due to the brittle nature of the branches which snap off easily.

Another Globemallow

Not a lot of color variety just yet, but here's a pinkish one. I've seen them white, light-blue(ish), and very red besides the typical orange - light orange.

Globemallow

Related to the marsh mallow, the globemallow is a common wildflower here. The neat thing about it is the variety of colors it can come in. I'll take some more pictures to show the various colors. This plant can get a bit over 3 feet high, but not usually much more than that.

Here are some branches with a bunch of globe-shaped flowers.

And here is a closer look

Desert Marigold

I decided it was high time to start using the close-up filters I had only previously used with print film. When the wind blew even the slightest amount I could never tell if my shot was in focus or not. Now with digital, I can tell right off if I need another shot.

So here are some shots of the desert marigold. The plant itself stands maybe a foot high with the flowers - maybe a bit more than that.

A close up of a 'normal' flower.

An aberrant form with a super-wide stalk and multiple flower heads. Check out the crab spider hiding on a petal.
Another aberrant with another crab spider