Antelope-Horns (Asclepias asperula ssp. asperula) is a milkweed, an important host for butterflies. The long, narrow leaves form a dark green mound. The huge globular clusters of flowers eventually form paisley-shaped seedpods filled with fluff. Each flower features the intricate milkweed structure with green corolla lobes and burgundy hoods.
Dogbane Family Apocynaceae
Blooms May through July
Horsetail Milkweed (Asclepias subverticillata) grows in large groups, airy with long stems and very narrow leaves. The umbel of blooms features the complex structure of milkweed flowers in white to green, eventually turning into fluff-filled pods. Favorite of pollinators and host to many butterflies including monarchs.
Dogbane Family Apocynaceae
Blooms June through September
Narrowleaf Yucca (Yucca angustissima) is very similar to a cousin in the same area, Y. baileyi. The differences are slight and they can hybridize with other similar yuccas. Note that this one has blossoms above the tip of the leaves. This is one clue to its id. The succulent creamy flowers will become cucumber like edible fruit. The indigenous people of the region traditionally used yucca for fiber, food, and soap.
Agave and Allies Family Asparagaceae
Blooms May and June
Broad Leaf Yucca (Yucca baccata) is now in the Asparagaceae (Asparagus Family). This a culturally important plant as well as naturally significant due to the multiple resources it’s offered to indigenous folks for millennia, fibers, soap, and food. The flowers are large and succulent, usually pendant like bells along the stalk. They will be followed by cucumber like fruit.
Agave and Allies Family Asparagaceae
Blooms May and June
Navajo Yucca (Yucca baileyi) is very similar to a cousin in the same area, Y. angustissima. The differences are slight and they can hybridize with other similar yuccas. Note that this one has blossoms below the tip of the leaves. This is one clue to its id.
Agave and Allies Family Asparagaceae
Blooms May through July
Esteve's Dusty-Maidens (Chaenactis stevioides), a member of Asteraceae (Sunflower Family), have whimsical button flowers on slender stalks above a rosette of divided leaves. They can form large swaths of white on slopes. The flowers are made up of disk florets which are tubular corollas with flared tips. Yellow bumps in the middle are unopened disk flowers.
Sunflower, Daisy, Aster, and Allies Family Asteraceae
Blooms April through June
Rose Heath (Chaetopappa ericoides) form clumps that spread by roots, sometimes becoming large colonies. The upright fuzzy stems are topped by bright daisies. The blooms consist of white ray flowers and yellow disk flowers. The rays will curl down by the end of day.
Sunflower, Daisy, Aster, and Allies Family Asteraceae
Blooms March through June
Horseweed (Conyza canadensis) is weedy, but also a pretty native. Look closely at the tip of the often tall plant. There are tiny daisies with white ray flowers and yellow disc flowers that will turn into off-white fluff. The narrow leaves cover the stem from ground to tip.
Sunflower, Daisy, Aster, and Allies Family Asteraceae
Blooms July through October
Townsend’s Daisy (Townsendia annua) is a small annual member of Asteraceae (Aster Family). The yellow center of disc flowers are surrounded by white ray flowers (sometimes with a hint of pink or purple) and rise on short stems. The spatulate leaves and spreading stems are covered with hair.
Sunflower, Daisy, Aster, and Allies Family Asteraceae
Blooms March through September
Thick-sepal Cat's Eye (Cryptantha crassisepala) is a tiny plant is covered with soft hairs. As they age, some of the hairs can become bristly. The pretty white flowers are very tiny but are typical for this family with yellow fornices like tiny crowns around their floral throat. The flowers are in spikes, but it is hard to tell until they mature into a taller form. Flowers become four nutlets.
Borage Family Boraginaceae
Blooms March though June
Redowski's Stickseed (Lappula redowskii) is a tiny plant, one of the first to bloom in spring. It starts to bloom when only inches high, becoming rangy as it matures. The bright pale blue flowers are mere specks amidst the downy green leaves. The nutlets are spiky with U-shaped structure.
Borage Family Boraginaceae
Blooms March through July
Tawny Cryptantha (Oreocarya fulvocanescens) is a very fuzzy perennial with showy clusters of bright white flowers with a crown of yellow fornices at the throat. The mound of dried leaves persist throughout the year.
Borage Family Boraginaceae
Blooms April and May
Spectacle Pod (Dimorphocarpa wislizeni) looks spectacular this year! Most of the plant has a fine fuzz on the leaves, stems, and buds. The name comes from the spectacle-shaped seed pods.
Mustard Family Brassicaceae
Blooms March through June
Mountain Pepperweed (Lepidium montanum) is a perennial mustard with green upper lanceolate and lower lobed leaves, long stems with terminal clusters of tiny white four-petaled (cruciform) flowers and six stamen rather than two. The snowy flower clusters can cover the subshrub. Tiny paddle-shaped seed pods develop and hang on through the winter.
Mustard Family Brassicaceae
Blooms April through September
Little Twistflower (Streptanthella longirostris) can be easy to miss with its small flowers and slender stem. Purple buds crown the plant while the little cream, urn-shaped flowers grow along the stem. The fruit are mustard-type siliques.
Mustard Family Brassicaceae
Blooms March through May
Wedge-leaf Stonecress (Tomostima cuneifolia) is a tiny plant but has some neat details. Look closely and the thick leaves to see the stellate or starburst-shaped hairs. The four petals (cruciform) of the little flower demonstrate that it is a mustard. They plants gather in a colony like a sprinkle of stars.
Mustard Family Brassicaceae
Blooms March through May
Whipple’s Cholla (Cylindropuntia whipplei) is a low growing, branched cactus with cylindrical stems. The stems can be green or purplish. The silky-petaled flowers are chartreuse green with yellow filaments within. The fruit are bumpy and yellow, often staying into the next year. Pronghorn browse on this plant.
Cactus Family Cactaceae
Blooms June and July
Rattlesnake Mat (Euphorbia albomarginata) is a low-growing groundcover. Once again, tiny “flowers” on members of this family are actually cyathia. The white “petals” are lobes of the cup-like structure. Some of the ovate leaves have maroon spots, making this species similar to others in the region.
Spurge Family Euphorbiaceae
Blooms May to September
Slimseed Sandmat (Euphorbia stictospora) is a spreading, low-growing ground cover forming thick mats. Ovate leaves can be irregularly toothed, hairy. Succulent stems can be green to red. Very tiny white and maroon cyathia are solitary at leaf nodes or form small clusters.
Spurge Family Euphorbiaceae
Blooms May through August
Doveweed (Croton texensis) are tall gray-green plants with elongated ovate leaves covered with stellate hairs. The flowers are minute, white to cream with no petals, male and female on separate plants.
Spurge Family Euphorbiaceae
Blooms May through November
Yellow Milkvetch (Astragalus flavus) oddly has white with a touch of purple flowers around the Four Corners. It is an attractive little subshrub with pale green compound leaves, a round habit, and tidy white pea-type flowers. The pods have a central depression, distinct from others in the genus in the park.
Legume Family Fabaceae
Blooms April through June
Stinking Milkvetch (Astragalus praelongus) is the tallest of the park’s many vetches. Last year’s stems can be found around the new growth of long compound leaves and reddish stems tipped by flower clusters. The pea-type blooms are ivory to pale yellow and will become inflated, plump pods.
Legume Family Fabaceae
Blooms April through July
Western Prairie Clover (Dalea candida var. oligophylla) is fountain-shaped. The long stems are tipped with clusters of tiny white flowers. The hypanthium—fused bases of stamens, petals, and sepals—is reddish, mostly hidden by the white petals: the banner, keel, and spatulate wing petals. The small compound leaves form a froth of greenery around the stems.
Legume Family Fabaceae
Blooms June through September
Rush Peteria (Peteria scoparia) is a perennial that forms fluffy shrubs with tiny scattered compound leaves. The relatively few flowers grow in long racemes, blooming from the bottom up. The pea-like blooms are white to yellow with maroon calyxes and turn into small pea-pods.
Legume Family Fabaceae
Blooms June through August
Utah Frasera or Deer’s Ears (Frasera paniculata) is a tall, slender plant. The basal leaves are outlined in white and the few stem leaves are opposite. The flowers are yellow-green with dark brown spots, well attended by pollinators due to the hairy glands. The flowering stems are arranged in airy panicles.
Gentian Family Gentianaceae
Blooms May through July
Fragrant White Sand Verbena (Abronia elliptica) has dull green leaves sprawl on the sand dune, a nice background for the showy spheres of slender white trumpets. The frilly corollas close early in the day. Once the flower is gone, the star-shaped bracts protect the developing dreidel-shaped fruit that make true identification possible.
Four O'Clock Family Nyctaginaceae
Blooms April through June
Winged Sandpuffs (Tripterocalyx carnea) is an annual herb with downy sprawling stems and ovate leaves. The white to pink slender trumpet florets form a globular cluster than becomes a fascinating ball of broad-winged fruit.
Four O'Clock Family Nyctaginaceae
Blooms May and June
Whitest Evening Primrose (Oenothera albacalis) is a low growing annual primrose, starting with a rosette of variable leaves. The four-petalled flowers are relatively large. Tiny leaves grow on the stems of this primrose, unlike those of O. caespitosa which are similar and bloom at the same time.
Evening Primrose Family Onagraceae Blooms
March through July
Tufted Evening Primrose (Oenothera caespitosa) is a small perennial with a seemingly disproportionately large bright white blossoms. The leaves can be entire, toothed, or dissected, growing in a low rosette. The flowers will bloom in the evening, withering and turning pink by noon the next day. Oenothera caespitosa which has no stem, no stem leaves; it is acaulescent.
Evening Primrose Family Onagraceae
Blooms April through July
Pale Evening Primrose (Oenothera pallida) is an airy plant with variable leaves. The often red, arching stems lift the four-petalled white flowers high. The petals have yellow-green bases. The plants can spread via the roots.
Evening Primrose Family Onagraceae
Blooms April through September
Southwestern Prickly Poppy (Argemone pleiacantha) is a large prickly plant with surprisingly delicate, large flowers with crinkly white petals that (nicknamed cowboy fried eggs due to the yellow anthers). The leathery gray-green leaves are very spiny.
Poppy Family Papaveraceae
Blooms May through September
Spreading Skyrocket (Ipomopsis polycladon) has tufts of green, hairy leaves and green bracts at the end of red stems. The tiny flowers are pretty five-petaled stars. The size protects it was spring issues such as drying winds.
Phlox Family Polemoniaceae
Blooms March through June
While Woolly Plantain (Plantago patagonica) is a very small plant, the details are beautiful. The entire plant is fuzzy and soft. The flowers that emerge from the upright spikes are tiny and translucent white, bilateral so they resemble micro orchids.
Plantain Family Plantaginaceae
Blooms March through July
Nodding Wild Buckwheat (Eriogonum cernuum) is another flat-topped smaller plant with dangling fluffy little flowers. The flowers trend from white to pink with a relatively long peduncle (as opposed to E. deflexum). Like many buckwheats, the flowers and other parts turn rust later.
Knotweed Family Polygonaceae
Blooms May through October
Flatcrown buckwheat (Eriogonum deflexum) generally looks like mini acacias, a single to a couple stems rising from a drying rosette of hairy, rounded leaves to spread out branches dangling little white to pink dependent flowers with darker midribs on their tepals.
Knotweed Family Polygonaceae
Blooms July through November
Sand buckwheat (Eriogonum leptocladon var. ramosissimum) is a very airy shrub with nearly glabrous to tomentose or floccose stems, appearing green to white due to matted hairs. The narrow leaves are few once the white to pink flowers start blooming in tight clusters. The perianths are white with reddish stripes on the tepals, with red anthers. In the park, they tend to bloom in the fall.
Knotweed Family Polygonaceae
Blooms June through October
Slenderleaf Buckwheat (Eriogonum leptophyllum) forms a medium sized rounded shrub. The many leaves are long and thin with a fascinating retrorse (rolled under) edge. The tiny white flowers form cymose clusters at the top of upright stems, turn to rust as they mature and dry.
Knotweed Family Polygonaceae
Blooms June through October, although here in the park seems to start in August.
Yavapai Buckwheat (Eriogonum pulchrum) is a small subshrubs that are spreading, gray to reddish small succulent leaves that are covered with grayish matted hair. The white to pink tiny flowers are clustered in small cymes at the end of short stems, turning rose to rust as they mature.
Knotweed Family Polygonaceae
Blooms August through October
