November 2005 Tour of Wildflowers in/near Anza Borrego Park

This page last modified on 13 November, 2005

In a note updated on 26 October, 2005, Tom Chester describes the blooming of a surprising number of spring-blooming annual wildflowers in the high country west of Ranchita along highway S2.  In a related series of Plant Trail Reports, Tom describes finding an unusual collection of wildflowers blooming in late October along the Hellhole Canyon trail near the Anza Borrego Park visitor center. He attributes both wildflower blooms to unusually heavy monsoonal rainfall in the east facing slope of the mountains near these locations.

The sample of wildflower photographs shown in this section result from a week that Lou & I spent based in Borrego, and ranging out to find the wildflowers in bloom in this region. We were unable to learn much about where the heavier monsoon rains had been located, but assumed that they would have caused wildflowers to  bloom in the canyons and washes where rainfall drainage would have concentrated.  Based on what we saw, one might conclude that the heaviest aggregate of monsoon rainfall would have occurred in a broad band running from the Highway S2 location (Plant Atlas square [G19]) generally along the slope running just north of Highway S22 (Montezuma Grade), and extending over the band running from Hellhole Canyon wash [G23] through Henderson Canyon wash [E24] and perhaps into Coyote Canyon. As shown here, there were flowers in bloom near San Felipe wash at Yaqui Well [I-24], Plum Canyon [J23], and just north of Scissors Crossing along S2 [I-21] ... but most of the species seen there are known to bloom well into the fall months.  Proceeding south along S2, the bush was far less green than in the areas just cited. We took time to stop at the small canyon wash which reaches S2 just at the base of Sweeney Pass [P28] ... and found two species there which normally are seen in bloom only in the spring.

The organization and placement of these photographs differs (temporarily) from the organization of the other wildflowers on this website, in order to make them widely available as quickly as possible - particularly for possible sample collection interest by participants in the SDNHM Plant Atlas project. The order of the thumbnail photos in the matrix index page generally follows the itinerary one might follow starting in the area SE of Lake Henshaw, proceeding to Borrego, then south toward I-8 along highway S2 starting at Scissors Crossing.  I will migrate these photos to their normal botanic family sets as quickly as time permits, and will add related photos to assist in identification in the manner I have generally followed.

As usual, a few of my identifications are tentative and/or questionable - and I will appreciate feedback from anyone who can help me to correct those ID's.

Enjoy ... Ken Bowles