Note: This post was originally made in reduced form on Facebook on Sept 29, 2013. I thought it was worth transferring the text and photos (and adding more) over to this blog since it illustrates a grand floral show after a good summer monsoon season with nearly 6 inches (15 cm) of rainfall, which I had not seen before since 1999, and have not since up to now in 2018. I hope that this won’t take 20 years to happen again….

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I’m telling you, this yellow-painted-valley floral display going on virtually right outside my front door is the best I have seen here in my 15 years to date. There are literally hundreds of thousands of acres of lemonscent daisy (Pectis angustifolia) mass blooming in Mohave County, Arizona right now in late September 2015. This is thanks to some very generous and well-spaced rainfall events in the summer monsoon season between early August and mid-September, giving the daisies ample time and moisture with which to develop. If you are in my area and want to come see it, you have about 7 to 10 days before the peak is past and it will start fading rapidly. Otherwise, I hope this much gold doesn’t wear out your color sensors.

Me with Opuntia chlorotica, the pancake prickly pear cactus. This photo was taken up on Archway Ridge, which is my name for the ridgeline that connects two peaks on my property and which contains a natural arch on it. All of the yellow lemonscent daisies (Pectis angustifolia) in the background are on my property. It was legendary.

The view from my ridge to the northwest. The Pectis flowers extend for miles and miles along Alamo Road towards the town of Yucca and beyond. They went all up through Golden Valley, Kingman, and on towards Meadview as well, a distance of roughly 80 to 100 miles. I’ve never seen anything like it locally before or since.

Overlooking my little valley from Archway Ridge with Alamo Road running horizontally in the distance. The saguaro in the middle foreground is easily visible from my house.

View to the east from Archway Ridge. I’ve never seen it this nice. Oh sure, I have seen lemonscent daisies plenty of times, sometimes in fairly substantial numbers, but not to this extent and density of coverage.

How gorgeous to witness the Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) swimming in a golden sea of flowers. The rains were generous and perfectly timed this year to bring this magnificence about.

Joshua trees growing above an ephemeral blanket of gold.

Lemonscent daisy also goes by the common name of chinchweed, which I find to be an ugly name so I go for the former. The foliage of these summer ephemerals is strongly and distinctively scented, albeit not really of lemons. Despite the name it has only a passing citrus fragrance. Some people find it obnoxious, but I really like it. It smells like summer rain to me.

A red barrel cactus (Ferocactus acanthodes) lends color contrast to the blue and gold motif of this beautiful fall day.

Lemonscent daisies are strictly summer-blooming annuals. They only germinate and grow with warm-season rains and are not present in the cooler season, just like the inverse is true for famous winter and spring desert wildflowers such as poppies and lupines, which never appear in summer and only pop up with cool winter rainfalls. By staggering their seasons like this, multiple species can occupy the same ecological niches without actually competing for the same resources at the same times. It’s ecologically ingenious and adds significant diversity to the desert ecosystem throughout the year.

Diamond chollas (Cylindropuntia ramosissima) emerge from the lemonscent field.

There is an unusual old corral located about a half-mile north of my property. It has not been in active use for 20 years or more by the local La Cienega Ranch, but the wooden juniper fence posts are weathering gracefully in the desert sun. Some of the juniper trees on my property show signs of missing branches, and I suspect that they were sawed off and moved to this corral more than 50 years ago. Take a look at the photo of the watering trough below, and tell me why it’s so unusual.

Distance view of the cattle trough through a zoom lens from Archway Ridge.

Yellow is such a cheerful color! I never get tired of its sunny disposition.

Lemonscent daisies are capable of initiating growth on as little as a half inch of monsoonal rainfall in summer, although ideally it should be a minimum of an inch or more. If the seedlings receive additional rainfall within 3 to 4 weeks of the kickoff event, they will grow much larger and bloom en masse as is shown here in these photos. If more precipitation is not forthcoming then they terminate their life cycle prematurely and put forth a single flower while remaining only an inch or two tall.

Don’t forget that since they bloom in summertime that the weather is very likely to be quite torrid at some point, which quickly evaporates the rain that fell and forces the daisies to hurry up and complete their life cycle. By being flexible as to their size and capacity to flower based upon moisture levels, these small but brilliant plants can either grow comparatively large and produce thousands of seeds, or stay small and make only a few dozen. I find them amazing in their ability to complete even a marginal blooming on one inch of rain in summer heat. I cannot think of too many other plants that do this, and I think it is worthy of special mention.

Why is this watering trough so atypical?

Yes, it’s a heptagon. For whatever reason we seldom see seven-sided objects – they are usually 6 or 8 sided. I have no idea why but it is interesting and I like it.

The corral’s wooden posts are made of local juniper wood, the only durable tree located within several miles of here. Several larger trees on my property about a half mile away have missing branches. I strongly suspect that some of them reside here now.

I wonder if the buffet restaurant chain Golden Corral would be interested in buying this image from me for a nationwide advertising campaign? I’ll let go of all rights to this image if I get free dinners for life. Pass it along to the marketing department….

Juniper tree with missing branches and a large Colorado four o-clock (Mirabilis multiflora) spreading across the ground, coaxed forth by all the rains as well.

This is one of the large California juniper trees (Juniperus californica) about a half mile from the corral above on my property with several missing branches. It’s a bit of a shame because this tree would be very beautiful were it larger. I’d say it’s about 75% missing. Well, at least it wasn’t totally murdered either and I still get to enjoy parts of it….

Juniper trees that grow at my relatively low elevation of 3000 feet (900 meters) at the upper edge of the desert are frequently hampered in their growth process by heat and dryness, and growth rates are quite slow down here. Tightly spaced annual wood rings indicate that this particular branch was at least 300 years of age when it was cut off.

In a very literal sense, these trees are growing at timberline. Although in this case, it is a lower timberline, not an upper one, because it is a zone of limitation enforced by increasingly hot and dry conditions, below which the trees are simply unable to reproduce and survive. As they go up somewhat in elevation into cooler and wetter conditions, they tend to grow a bit faster and are likely to be both larger and younger than trees at this lower timberline.

A rusted iron gate hinge adorns a corner post of juniper wood in this old ranch corral about a half-mile north of me. Elegant and rustic.