Thursday, June 21, 2007

Low Water, High Style Shrub

The Arizona high desert country offers some very attractive native shrubs: manzanita ... cliff rose ... Apache plume, to name a top few. Right now, the Apache plume is at or just past its prime. A good place to see the plant in plume: SR69 between the older mall and the casino hill. These pictures I captured about two weeks earlier near Willow Creek Road and the new Walgreens.

Apache plume is at its most attractive when it goes to seed. A member of the rose clan, this shrub has pretty straight forward single, white rose-like blossoms. Similar to strawberries. However, it doesn't simply make seeds -- it adds pinkish or white streamers to disperse the seeds as high-flying kites. That's what you see in these pictures -- the puffs that form the seedheads. Easy to grow. Low water useage. Spreads, but slowly. Usually available at Watters in the summer.

2 comments:

  1. This is a totally new one on me. I like it!

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  2. It's one of three plants that have interesting plumes. The cliff rose has less spectacular plumage, while the mountain mahogany grows shiny corkscrew attachments to its seeds. All very cool.

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