Blossoms on a Saguaro

Three Blooms on a Saguaro

follow Three Blooms on a Saguaro © 2012 Bo Mackison

https://bettierose.co.uk/ggsvm7hsju The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth. ~ Chinese Proverb

source url These are the first blooms on a saguaro cactus I have ever seen. What a thrill!

Order Tramadol Overnight As I drive and walk through the Saguaro forests in the Sonoran Desert I am on the look out for saguaro blooms. I’ve seen a few cactus with their heads covered with a few buds, and a couple that have a mop of buds like the saguaro in the photograph.  But I have only seen two that actually had a flower in bloom — and this one had three!

Buy Diazepam Eu These three blossoms will start to shrivel and fade as evening approaches. Other blossoms will bloom in the night and those flowers will last for much of tomorrow. A saguaro flower only lives one day – but what beauty it offers in that single day!

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enter Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona until the end of April. She is so happy that the flowering season for cacti — hedgehogs, prickly pear, cholla, and finally saguaro — is showing peeks of color in the desert.

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Desert Agave in Bloom

Agave with Yellow Blooms

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This lovely agave, known as the Desert Agave, is also sometimes called the “century plant”. It may have seemed like a century between flowerings to the ones who originally named it, but in practice it flowers after 8 – 20 years. Although all the flowering plants die, the plants also send out offshoots of non-flowering rosettes that remain alive, ready to flower in another year. The leaves of the rosettes are armed with stiff terminal spines, not to be fooled with, though hummingbirds seem quite attracted to the flowers.

https://tudiabetesbajocontrol.com/relanzam/online-valium-uk.php The Desert Agave is one of the more drought-tolerant of the more than 130 species of agave found in north America. It typically grows on gravely earth from south-eastern California and south-western Arizona to Baja, California and northern regions of the state of Sonora, Mexico.

Buy Diazepam 10Mg India The core of the plant was baked in rock-lined pits by desert-dwelling Indians to form a nutritious energy-rich staple food. Baked agave is still available in Mexican markets. I’d love to taste it.

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source site Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. She is grateful for the opportunity to see the diversity and beauty of the Sonoran Desert and its amazing plants.

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Return to the Chiricachuas

see The first time I visited Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona, on my first visit to Arizona in 2008, I was in awe of the vast mountain spires, the chimneys and balanced rocks and imposing towers of stone. Interspersed within this wonderland of rock was a forest of many shades of green, and an immense variety of vegetation caused by the interconnection of four major habitats – the Chihuahuan Desert from the east, the Sonoran Desert from the west, the Rocky Mountains from the north and the Sierra Madre Mountains from the south.

https://www.rmporrua.com/kv9uqqxucl All come together in Chiricahua, a sky island, and the combined diversity in nature was almost unimaginable. A drive from northern Canada, through the United States, and ending in northern Mexico would give you a similar experience, but add 2,000 miles to your drive.

Chiricahua

Order Tramadol Canada Chiricahua National Monument © 2012 Bo Mackison

Buy Diazepam From Mexico When I was in Arizona last winter, I had hoped to visit the Monument again, but I ran out of time. No problem, I thought. I’ll go see the Chiricahuas when I come back. They’ll still be there. I’ll have more time to explore, and I can camp again in the delightful Bonita Springs Campground.

Tramadol Order Online Overnight I returned to Chiricahua National Monument a few days ago. And I was partly wrong in my assumptions. Yes, the Chiricahuas are still there, the mountains as vast and intricate as always. But no, they are not the same. Last May, 2011, only a few weeks after my return to the Midwest, a human-caused fire started in the drought-dry Coronado National Forest many miles south of the park.

https://www.pslra.org/7eg25m3mj0f A deep freeze the February before had killed much of the annual and perennial vegetation in the area. And a regional drought had made the whole of southeastern Arizona like a tinder box. One carelessly watched campfire was all it took. Six weeks after the initial blaze, almost 223,000 acres in the Chiracahua Mountains, and 100% of Chiricahua National Monument, had burned. Buildings were saved, a few hundred acres of trees in the lower elevations and near the campground had been protected, but everything else had been damaged to some extent by the wildfire.

source link Last week, I finally had the chance for a proper visit. I set up my campsite, and then took the last tour of the day of the Faraway Ranch,the historical ranch that was instrumental in establishing this part of the Chiricahuas as a National Monument back in the 1920s. Then I headed up into the mountains on the eight mile long road to see the summit and assess the damage I had only heard about.

http://foodsafetytrainingcertification.com/food-safety-news/va5l1u5dic The rocks were there, but the trees I remember were burnt tree matchsticks. Entire mountains had been denuded. Here and there a few survivors showed green against the pale rock, but the damage was — perhaps I am being dramatic here, but the only word I can think of is — heartbreaking.

click here As I walked around I still admired the rocks. They are still spectacular. But I wondered what had happened to all the species of mammals and bats, hummingbirds and insects, the trees and the flowers, that had flourished here in such unprecedented numbers. Where had everything gone?

I saw a few birds soaring between the rocks and one lizard. I saw a few wildflowers, hugging the road. A few bushes, some scarred. A few trees.

I left my camera in the car. Even though it was late afternoon, and the time was approaching the golden hour, my enthusiasm for photography was at a low. I drove back to the campground, packed up the few things I’d piled on the picnic table, and drove back to Tucson.

Before I left, I took a couple of photographs near the Faraway Ranch where the trees were saved.

Chiricahua National Monument

Spared Chiricahuas © 2012 Bo Mackison

The monument won’t be the monument I remember falling in love with until my grandchildren’s children are old enough to hike the trails. I’ll be back before then, ready to find the beauty I know is still there, ready to take photographs of Chiricahua.

I need a little time to adjust to Chiricahua as it is now. But I’ll be back.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona.

 

Beauty Surrounds Us

It is easy to miss the details when looking at the whole. We admire the forest, but don’t see the trees, or we do notice a tree, but never examine the pattern of its bark or the intricacies of its flower.

I’ve been admiring the great stalks of flowers branching out from the many yuccas and agaves in bloom for many weeks, and just first thought to take a close up look at one of its flowers.

Spanish Bayonet Macro

Sotolillo Blossoms in Macro © 2012 Bo Mackison

And when I finally did get a closer look – wow. Thousands of tiny white flowers on this sotolillo, white tinges with shades of purple, petals closing together, as if harboring a secret.

Spring pops up in the desert in the most unlikely of places, but when I began in earnest to go on a “spring hunt” looking for bits of spring, I realized that the season of new life surrounds me. Beauty of a different sort, perhaps, but beauty nonetheless.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona.

 

In All Things of Nature

The Spanish Bayonet agave is a wicked sounding plant, and no doubt if you bump into it or step upon a fallen spike, it gives a wicked stab, too. But just as you can’t accurately judge a person by his or her name, or a new food by its appearance, you cannot know a plant by its name, nor a casual glance.

It usually takes time to get to know a plant, or a person for that matter.

Sotolillo

Sotolillo © 2012 Bo Mackison

When I first saw the Spanish Bayonet agave, it was a mass of red tinged, spiky green stabbing sticks. Those who knew the desert well called that bundle of danger an agave plant, or according to some botanists, a very close relative of the agave. I thought perhaps they were being generous.

Spanish Bayonet in Bloom

Spanish Bayonet in Bloom © 2012 Bo Mackison

In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous. ~ Aristotle

Then one day when I was out and about in the Sonoran desert, I saw the Spanish bayonet, but it was no longer simply a spiky plant. Its center had opened, the heart of the plant, and bursting forth was a mass of purple florets. This spiky plant, this plant which has red-tinged tips and a vague look of battle, had always had this beauty in its heart.

It was unknown to me, a newcomer to the desert. But what a wonderful gift for me – a surprise bouquet!

Spanish Bayonet

Flower Spike © 2012 Bo Mackison

One looks, looks long, and the world comes in. ~ Joseph Campbell

The sotolillo – the name I have since learned is the Mexican name of the plant, and one that I quite prefer – offered even more delight at my next visit, a week or so later. The bouquet in the middle of the spikes had stretched – like, I imagine, Jack’s beanstalk grew – and it   stretched towards the sky, a full ten feet high. Lovely!

There is one last photograph of the sotolillo blossom that I will save for Sunday’s post. It is a beauty, perfect for Part II.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. She remains amazed and grateful for the opportunity to see the diversity and beauty of the Sonoran Desert.