Hints for Flower Photographers 1
Introduction 1
The Desert 1
Why and When Do Deserts Bloom? 1
Identifying Desert Wildflowers 3
Spring gives an Evening Party 4
1. Longleaf ephedra 5
2. Common reed 5
3. Prairie spiderwort 6
4. Desertlily 6
5. Mariposa 7
6. Golden mariposa 7
7. Desert mariposa 8
8. Soaptree yucca 8
9. Joshua-tree 9
10. Torrey yucca 9
11. Giant yucca 10
12. Sacahuista 10
13. Sotol 11
14. Agave 11
15. Parry agave 12
16. Lechuguilla 12
17. Canaigre 13
18. Trailing-four-o’clock 13
19. Sand-verbena 14
20. Mexican goldpoppy 14
21. Pricklepoppy 15
22. Evening-primrose 15
23. Spectaclepod 16
24. Bladderpod 16
25. Western-wallflower 17
26. False-mesquite 17
27. Catclaw-acacia 18
28. Mescat-acacia 18
29. Honey mesquite 19
30. Senna 19
31. Blue palo-verde 20
32. Bird-of-Paradise-flower 20
33. Lupine 21
34. Adonis lupine 21
35. Smoke-thorn 22
36. Dalea 22
37. Tesota 23
38. Woolly loco 23
39. Heron-bill 24
40. Creosotebush 24
41. Arizona-poppy 25
42. Desert-mallow 25
43. Five-stamen tamarisk 26
44. Yellow mentzelia 26
45. Rock-nettle 27
46. Night-blooming cereus 27
47. Saguaro 28
48. Organpipe cactus 28
49. Claretcup echinocereus 29
50. Strawberry echinocereus 29
51. Rainbow echinocereus 30
52. Yellow pitaya echinocereus 30
53. Barrel cactus 31
54. Fishhook cactus 31
55. Beavertail cactus 32
56. Engelmann pricklypear 32
57. Jumping cholla 33
58. Pencil cholla 33
59. Whipple cholla 34
60. Walkingstick cholla 34
61. Evening-primrose 35
62. Ocotillo 35
63. Field bind-weed 36
64. Santa Fe phlox 36
65. Starflower 37
66. Phacelia 37
67. Nama 38
68. Buffalobur 38
69. Silverleaf nightshade 39
70. Sacred datura 39
71. Tree tobacco 40
72. Ceniza 40
73. Desert beardtongue 41
74. Palmer penstemon 41
75. Paintbrush 42
76. Owl-clover 42
77. Desert-willow 43
78. Trumpet-bush 43
79. Louisiana broomrape 44
80. Coyote-melon 44
81. Snake-weed 45
82. Desertstar 45
83. Mohave aster 46
84. Fleabane 46
85. Broom baccharis 47
86. Desert zinnia 47
87. Brittle-bush 48
88. Silverleaf enceliopsis 48
89. Crown-beard 49
90. Douglas coreopsis 49
91. Paperflower 50
92. Desert baileya 50
93. Goldfields 51
94. Chaenactis 51
95. Douglas groundsel 52
96. New Mexico thistle 52
97. Desert dandelion 53
98. Malacothryx 53
99. White cupfruit 54
100. Prickly sowthistle 54
Suggestions for Additional Reading 56
Index 58
_Hints for Flower Photographers_
If your interest in desert flowers includes a desire to obtain beautiful
photographs of them, the following “tips” may be helpful.
MOTION is a major hazard in still photography, and flowers, especially
those on long, slender stems, seem to be constantly in motion stimulated
by the ever-present desert breeze. The practical solution to this
problem is to take your photographing jaunts, if possible, in the early
morning when the air is most likely to be motionless. A flower picture
blurred by motion is a complete flop!
Except for motion, nothing will irritate you more often than the abrupt,
frequent, and marked CHANGES IN LIGHTING due to small clouds passing
over the sun. Again, early morning has an advantage in normally
cloudless desert skies. Clouds may be expected after 10 o’clock on many
days.
DEPTH OF FIELD is highly important in flower photography, and you will
be gratified with the results if you take pains to have all parts of the
picture, except the background, in sharp focus. This desirable objective
has become less difficult to attain with the advent of “faster” films
which enable you to use the required small diaphragm “stop” without too
greatly reducing the shutter speed, and still obtain adequate exposures.
Too many flower photographers fail to get really CLOSE UP PICTURES. A
single blossom or a small cluster of blossoms provides a much more
attractive and significant picture than an entire plant. One blossom
with, perhaps, a bud, one fruit, and a trace of foliage, if well
composed, is tops among flower pictures. This objective requires camera
equipment with the ability to focus on objects close to the lens. Also
it complicates the goal of getting all parts of the picture into sharp
focus.
UNCLUTTERED BACKGROUNDS are a “must” in flower pictures. You might
consider joining the flower photographers who carry with them plain gray
or variously tinted background cards or light-weight boards. Such a card
or board of contrasting color, when placed behind the blossom, will
accomplish wonders in giving prominence to the flower. One method of
obtaining a dark background is to ask someone (if you are a
contortionist you can do it yourself) to stand in such a position as to
cast a shadow on the ground or foliage behind the subject. The sky makes
an excellent background, and you will find it useful whenever you can
set your camera below the level of the subject.
With the foregoing points in mind, study the pictures in this booklet
with the aim of trying to surpass them in quality. By exercising care
and patience, you should be able to do so.
_Introduction_
_The Desert_
When Webster defined a desert as a “dry, barren region, largely treeless
and sandy” he was not thinking of the 50,000 square mile Great American
Desert of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Most of it
is usually dry and parts may be sandy, but as a whole, it is far from
barren and treeless. Heavily vegetated with gray-green shrubs, small but
robust trees, pygmy forests of grotesque cactuses and stiff-leaved
yuccas, and myriads of herbaceous plants, the desert, following rainy
periods, covers itself with a blanket of delicate, fragrant wildflowers.
Edmund C. Jaegar, author of several books on deserts, reports that the
California deserts alone support more than 700 species of flowering
plants.
The late Dr. Forrest Shreve, for many years Director of the Desert
Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution near Tucson, Arizona, defined a
desert as “a region of deficient and uncertain rainfall.” He divided the
Great American Desert into four major sections: (1) _Chihuahuan_
(chee-WAH-wahn), including the Mexican States of Chihuahua and Coahuila
(coa-WHEE-lah), southwestern Texas, and south-central New Mexico; (2)
_Sonoran_, including Baja California, southwestern Arizona, and
northwestern Sonora; (3) _Mojave_ (moh-HAH-vee), Colorado, including
south-eastern California and extreme southern Nevada; (4) _Great Basin_,
including Nevada, Utah, southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon.
Since the steppes and mesas of the Great Basin Desert have generally
lower temperatures, higher elevations, and greater precipitation than
the other three sections, we are not including its flowers in this work.
_Why and When Do Deserts Bloom?_
The Great American Desert produces, when conditions are favorable, a
gorgeous exhibition of wildflowers. Trees, shrubs, and herbs all
contribute to the splendor of the display. Soil composition, slope and
exposure, suitable temperatures, and adequate moisture are essential to
plant growth and flower production.
Moisture is the uncertain factor, and years may pass without enough
rainfall to stimulate plant growth. Rain of less than 0.15 inch is
wasted as far as desert plants are concerned, for the moisture
evaporates before penetrating the soil. Some annuals produce seeds
having water-soluble germination inhibitors in their coverings, hence
fail to sprout, even after rain, unless the moisture totals at least
half an inch.
When soil moisture from December and January rainfall is enough to
support potential plants it dissolves the seed coats, and the desert
floor is soon carpeted with eager green seedlings. When winter rains are
scant, as is so often the case, the dormant seed population fails to
germinate and the spring flower display doesn’t appear. There is no sure
way to forecast a spectacular blossom year, for a sudden cold wave or
period of drying winds may literally nip in the bud a potential season
of brilliant bloom. A great flower year may occur only once in a decade.
Perennials are more dependable than annuals, since some of them,
particularly cactuses and other succulents, have water storage tissues
in their stems or roots. These perennials may be counted on to blossom
each year, but with much less abandon than after winters of above normal
precipitation. Many perennials have surprisingly extensive root systems.
Fascinating are the ways by which plants manage to thrive under severe
conditions of desert heat and drought. As we have seen, most annuals lie
dormant as seeds until suitable moisture and temperature occur. Then
they grow very rapidly, to bloom and mature seeds while the soil still
has moisture. Winter rains produce spring-blooming ephemerals, and
summer showers produce summer “quickies.”
Another group of plants, including the ocotillo (oh-koh-TEE-yoh), slows
down life processes to become dormant during dry periods, even to
dropping all leaves. When rains come they put on new leaves, several
times a year if necessary.
Cactuses and other succulents gorge themselves with water when the soil
is wet, releasing moisture very sparingly from storage tissues during
the “long dry.” Some have discarded or reduced foliage, or have covered
leaf surfaces with varnish or wax, to decrease to a minimum the loss of
vital moisture through transpiration.
_Identifying Desert Wildflowers_
Unless you are a botanist, identification of flowers by measuring and
counting their various parts, as described in technical keys, is
generally too complicated to be practical. Several years ago,
recognizing this problem, I authored a book, _Flowers of the Southwest
Deserts_, illustrated by Jeanne R. Janish and published by the
Southwestern Monuments Association, designed to aid the wildflower
fancier in plant identification by color-grouping the flowers. With Mrs.
Janish’s superb illustrations pointing out each plant’s most obvious
characteristics, it has proved an excellent field guide. However, the
demand for natural color flower portraits could not go unheeded, and
this book is the result. The two books complement each other, although
each fills a need in its own right. Used together, they make you more
positive of some identifications.
Probably the best way to become acquainted with a flower is to be
introduced to it by someone. But there is one catch to this method—one
plant may be known by many aliases.
When the Spaniards came into the Southwest over 400 years ago they found
Indians had names for some flowers in their own languages. The Spaniards
added their names, and later the Americans added English names. Some of
these names were of similar-appearing but quite different flowers they
had known “back East.” Later, scientists studied the desert plants, and
gave them all Latin names.
To assist in standardizing names of desert flowers, this booklet gives
preference in its headings to scientific and common names found in
_Arizona Flora_, by Kearney and Peebles, Second Edition, 1960. Common
names found in _Texas Plants, A Checklist and Ecological Summary_, 1962,
by F. W. Gould, also have been used. In addition, placed within the
text, are some of the more widely used common names that we have
encountered. Tree names, both common and scientific, follow the
_Checklist of Native and Naturalized Trees of the United States_, by
Elbert L. Little, Jr., 1953.
There are many desert flowers, some quite common, for which there was
not space in this booklet. If you wish to broaden your acquaintance to
include more, we recommend, for added reading publications listed in the
back.
The author wishes to express here sincere thanks to Mrs. Pauline M.
Patraw, Santa Fe botanist, for assistance in identifying many of the
flowers pictured here. For assistance in checking identifications, the
author is indebted to Miss Barbara Lund, Park Naturalist, National Park
Service; to Dr. Charles T. Mason, Jr., Curator of the Herbarium,
University of Arizona Tucson; and to Dr. W. B. McDougall, Curator of
Botany, Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff.
_Spring gives an Evening Party_
[Illustration: Spring gives an Evening Party]
When Paloverde trims her golden gown,
And Deerhorn dons her filaments of white;
When tall Saguaro fits his fragrant crown
In preparation for the party night;
When bats across the ruby sunset dance,
When Ocotillo lights his candle’s flame,
When verdure carpets Desert’s wide expanse,
Then Spring is in the Southwest once again.
The linnets in their scarlet vests and caps
Are first to answer Spring’s insistent call,
While white-crowned sparrows scan their travel maps,
Discussing details of the coming ball.
Then thrashers practice every morn and eve
The songs they’ll sing upon that night of nights,
While phainopeplas, in their haste to leave,
Dash back and forth in short, impatient flights.
The desert halls glow bright as time draws near.
Each cactus wears her frilled and perfumed dress.
Ground squirrels, for this joyous time of year,
Sport their best furs. The rabbits do no less.
From far and near the desert folk have come
To wait their hostess, Spring, who, very soon,
Will lift stars o’er the skyline, one by one,
And then turn on the glorious, golden moon.