Category: Botany

Calochortus, The Coolest Lilies of California?

Have you ever found yourself oo-ing and aww-ing over a Mariposa Lily? Or a Cat’s Ear Flower, or a globe flower? Well you were looking at the Calochortus genus! It’s a beautiful and interesting genera, let me tell you a bit about it!

Five Fantastic Fire Following Flowers

Fire is a natural process is in California’s natural history. Once a wildfire has come and gone the landscape can be transformed into a sea of color, it’s not all doom and gloom. I investigated five fire following plants and tell the tales of how I stumbled upon them.

Two Months in Joshua Tree, What Two Naturalists Got Up To

For two months we lived in Joshua Tree huntin and searchin for all the plants, bugs, and wildlife we could find. It was a success! This is a post of my summary of what two naturalists got up to and found in the Mojave desert in Feb & March of 2021.

Spurge is the word . . . around these parts.

The deserts of Southern California have some incredibly interesting plants with unique structures and beautiful colors. In this post I explore the spurges and their cousins that I’ve found recently! Super neat plants!

Questions for a Cactus

The charismatic plant of the desert that cant be avoided visually, but intentionally avoided physically is of course the cactus! After hiking around Joshua Tree NP for weeks I had some questions for these funky fun plants.