Make your plans now to be in the desert during the wildflower season and take your digital camera. Send your pictures and reports to Jim@desertusa.com. He will post them on the wildflower reports site so that everyone can enjoy the wildflowers. Please do not change the automatically generated subject line on your E-mail to us. We use this subject to make sure we are able to spot your E-mail. For State or Park updates click above
Wildflowers and other Flowering Desert Plants
Desert plants have adapted to the extremes of heat and aridity by developing a lifestyle in conformance with the seasons of greatest moisture and/or coolest temperatures. These type of plants are usually (and inaccurately) referred to as annuals -- plants that live for only a season -- and perennials -- plants that live for several years.
Desert perennials often survive by remaining dormant during dry periods of the year, then springing into bloom when water becomes available. Some perennials, like members of the Lily Family, may remain dormant underground for several years before adequate winter rains rouse them back to life.
Most annual desert plants germinate only after heavy seasonal rains, then complete their reproductive cycle very quickly. They bloom prodigiously for a few weeks in the spring, accounting for most of the annual wildflower explosions of the deserts. Quickly pollinated, their heat- and drought-resistant seeds are broadcast by the winds, which then remain dormant in the soil until the following year's annual rains.
The term "annuals" implies blooming yearly, but since this is not always the case, desert annuals are more accurately referred to as ephemerals. Many such ephemerals can complete an entire life cycle in just a few weeks.
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