It’s another great year for wildflowers in the Tucson area; we had 3 inches of rain in November/December last year, followed by one of the warmest Januaries ever: the flowers are at least 4 weeks early and they are all over the place.
Today I took the day off from work, and my mom and I hiked along a trail west of Tucson, the King Trail, which starts directly across from the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and goes to the top of Wasson Peak; we didn’t go all the way to the top, just did a 5 mile loop. Here’s a great shot of my mom:
There are giant pockets of poppies and lupines all along the trail:
I couldn’t believe how bright red-orange this Globemallow plant was; usually, the Globemallow I see in the city is a dull orange: this is crazy bright, with purple lupines in the background:
More poppies, looking down from the trail as we head back towards the car; you can see the trail we hiked in on here if you look to the top of the photo:
Here I am taking a short break and simply enjoying all the flowers:
This is either a wild onion or wild garlic; I’ve never seen this in the desert before, just cultivated:
This is another flower from the mallow family; it was the first one we saw on the trall–a small planet with a single flower– but a few hundred feet up we saw small bushes with the same flowers:
I’m sorry to say I forget the name of this flower. I think I’ve photographed this before and possibly it’s in a prior blog entry, my mom’s hand is there for scale:
All in all, just a fantastic trip; one thing great about Tucson is how easy it is to get out and in nature super fast. The trail is just half an hour from my house.
