When visiting the Museum’s pollinator garden between September and November, you’ll likely notice a fluttering cloud of orange around the violet blooms of Conoclinium dissectum, commonly known as palm-leaf mistflower. Look a little closer, and you’ll see that among those orange wings are not only queen butterflies (Danaus gilippus), but occasionally well-traveled monarch butterflies (Danaus Plexpus) on their migratory journey….
Category: Plants
An Ecological Checkup for the Gulf of California
How does one do a checkup on a whole ecosystem? It takes a lot of doctors! Thirty-two, in the case of the latest Assessment of the Ecological Health of the Gulf of California, which finds that parts of the system are doing well, while others are hurting.
The Many Colors of Desert Museum Conservation
As our visitors quickly realize after spending a day at the Desert Museum, we are much more than a museum, or a zoo, or any one thing! Our diverse approach to education and conservation allows for a variety of ways for our community to engage in the work we do and deepen their understanding and…
Opo: Olneya tesota
This post is part four of an ongoing series exploring the science and ethnobotany of plants found throughout the Sonoran Desert region. The first four plants in this series are the Mexican trees Taxodium mucronatum (ahuehuete/Montezuma cypress), Randia echinocarpa (papache/papachi), Forchhammeria watsonii (jito), and Olneya tesota (opo/ironwood). For each plant, we are sharing a blog…
El Jito: Forchhammeria watsonii
This post is part three of an ongoing series exploring the science and ethnobotany of plants found throughout the Sonoran Desert region. The first four plants in this series are the Mexican trees Taxodium mucronatum (ahuehuete/Montezuma cypress), Randia echinocarpa (papache/papachi), Forchhammeria watsonii (jito), and Olneya tesota (opo/ironwood). For each plant, we are sharing a blog…
Papachi: Randia echinocarpa
This post is part two of an ongoing series exploring the science and ethnobotany of plants found throughout the Sonoran Desert region. The first four plants in this series are the Mexican trees Taxodium mucronatum (ahuehuete/Montezuma cypress), Randia echinocarpa (papache/papachi), Forchhammeria watsonii (jito), and Olneya tesota (opo/ironwood). For each plant, we are sharing a blog…
Ahuehuete: Taxodium mucronatum
This post is part one of an ongoing series exploring the science and ethnobotany of plants found throughout the Sonoran Desert region. The first four plants in this series are the Mexican trees Taxodium mucronatum (ahuehuete/Montezuma cypress), Randia echinocarpa (papache/papachi), Forchhammeria watsonii (jito), and Olneya tesota (opo/ironwood). For each plant, we are sharing a blog…
Desert Mycorrhizae: A Plantiful Partnership
By Jack Dash In a previous blog post we discussed some of the mushrooms commonly encountered in the Sonoran Desert. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi (think of an apple on an apple tree) and are often visible above ground. But not all fungi produce visible mushrooms like macrofungi do. In this post we’ll…
Mushrooms of the Tucson Basin
By Jack Dash The Sonoran Desert is known for its strange and wonderful organisms like giant saguaro cacti, resilient desert tortoises, scavenging vultures, venomous Gila monsters and rattlesnakes, and so many more. But did you know the desert is also home to a variety of fungi? In fact, you’ll find fungi everywhere, from deserts to…
Are saguaros dying in Arizona?
By Jack Dash There has been a lot of talk in the news lately about a mass saguaro collapse caused by heat and drought. This claim, and the media storm around it, requires a bit of unpacking. The story begins with the fantastic research team at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix who have been…
Desert Diaries 