My reliable wildflowers return

In Arizona you quickly learn that all the wild plants are both tough and opportunistic. Thus, as the chance of a deep frost has receded, my perennial wildflowers have sprung to life quickly, taking advantage of all that winter rain I've raved on about. My barbatus penstemon, for example, has started numerous flower stalks in the midst of all those leaves. R.E.D. and reliable, too. Is quite happy to get lots of water, though it doesn't count on it. That's unlike the tall pink Palmers penstemon, which can be drowned.

Dainty leaves like these belong to our local wild columbine, which is a canary yellow -- and prolific, growing wherever seeds fall, if there's a bit of water. So I have a lot of yellow columbines. There's a red and yellow form that grows at lower elevations and up in the high country you might come across a blue and white Rocky Mountain variety, if you are lucky.

Old reliable this four o'clock is. Once it builds that huge tuber down at the middle of the earth, it will come up every year and bloom as long as it gets water -- not the usual pattern for perennials which focus on a fast crop of seeds to keep the species going.

This picture of two new, intertwined white evening primroses was taken 3/28/08. Already both plants have buds about to open. I have to keep my fingers crossed because the javelina find the roots quite tasty.

A very happy California poppy (sort of red) and above it, the pink Palmer's penstemon, with flower stalks taking off. As I've written before, the poppies are perennial here in Prescott if they get a certain amount of water and thus the plants grow to an impressive size.

I don't know if you recall this particular Indian paint brush plant. Last year, its red bracts stayed bright -- and multiplied for much of the summer, producing a spectacular show. The picture above is from 3/28. Now look below for the picture I took yesterday! Already on its way to another showy year.

Linkages: Warren of Touch the Wind is up in Oregon and tonight showed some excellent street art, including an almost-elephant, with young on its back. And, on the subject of street art, Tombo has scored more colorful graffiti -- not the f**k or s**t kind, thank goodness; potty mouth is not only vulgar, it's a B-O-R-E! And PrescottStyle offers pictures from the McCain appearance.

Lady of the Night

While speeding down certain highways at this time of year, you periodically see what look like small clusters of discarded pink Kleenex alongside the roadway. Slow down and the sight will almost always resolve into a patch of spent white evening primrose blossoms. Unless it is early morning or an overcast day, in which case the white flowers may still be near their prime.

Fortunately, this plant sits across the street from my house and I was able to follow a single blossom through its one-day cycle. Here at dusk, the tightly wound flower begins to unfurl.

By the time the flower was part way open, flash was necessary. Like most night-blooming white flowers, the evening primrose tries to entice insects with periodic puffs of a lavender-like scent.

Here's what I saw at about 10 a.m. this morning. For some reason, this particular patch of primrose has escaped the notice of the javelina, who love the somewhat fleshy roots -- they almost always destroy any plants I manage to get started up my hillside.

By the time I was setting off for a walk downtown at 2 p.m., the new blossom was completely spent. If you look closely, you'll see that the flower is connected to the heart of the plant by a long tube, rather than a stem; hence, its name -- stemless evening primrose. The seed pods are tight against the center of the plant.Why this species -- native to the Western hemisphere -- is called primrose, I've no idea. No relationship to the Old World primrose, in any event.

In the Prescott area, I've seen the tall Hooker's evening primrose out at Granite Basin Lake and elsewhere; pretty little ground-hugging yellow sundrops occur near Watson Lake and out the Perkinsville Road. For further info about the species, start with Wikipedia.