Readers’ wildlife photos

Reader Debra Coplan made a trip to Baja, and today sends us photos. Her captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

I had the opportunity to visit the Baja Peninsula this past weekend, and would like to share some of the wonderful vegetation I saw from the that area. We went as far south as the Sonora Desert region to Catavina, east of the Pacific Ocean. Catavina is about 300 miles south of the border.

We had to drive from the north which had Mediterranean desert foliage to the Sonora Desert which had little rain. The Mediterranean desert gets hurricanes which dump water to an area in that more northern part of the desert.

The Mediterranean desert is north of Sonora desert, but they abut next to each other. Sometimes we saw Mediterranean desert on one side of the road and Sonora-type vegetation on the other . A clearer transition between the 2 areas became evident as we went south into drier region: one side being lush with taller plants and the other side dry with low plants.

I am not a biologist, so hopefully I’ve identified the plants correctly.

Boojum Tree – Cirio Idria columnaris

This is an plant endemic to this Catavina area of the desert. It is the signature plant of the region, and can get to 70 feet tall. The flame of leaves on the top are golden like a flame at the top of a candle. See top photo.

The second Boojum had a stalk that was in an area of more water so it looks more lush.  The name Boojum is in reference to Lewis Carroll’s poem, “The Hunting of the Snark”. It is looks a bit like an upside down carrot with a whitish stalk.

On the road on the way out of Catavina we were stopped by the military police checking to make sure we did not steal a Boojum tree to transplant up north.

Cardon.  Pachycereus pringleiL

This particular cardon had a genetic mutation so instead of growing up, it grew sideways. The man is about 6’ tall.  I was fascinated by the one limb that wasn’t affected by the mutation.

California penstemon; Penstemon californicus:

I am including this penstemon flower because it was my favorite story. I loved how it gets pollinated. Unfortunately, the plant was down below a steep creek so I did not get a photo.

Various species of bees in the region are guided into the flower by the purple lines pointing the way to the back of the flower. It reminds me of an airplane coming in for a landing.

As the bees go in, the pollen rubs from the antlers (male part) off onto the bee.  You can see the long anthers but unfortunately there was no pollen in this one. The bees then fly off to another penstemon where the pollen interacts with the stigma (female part) deeper in the flower to pollinate.

Nightshade Mariola, Solanum hindsianum

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of a flower on this plant either,  but was amazed by the pollination story.  This plant had very tiny opening at the end of the yellow anthers. It’s very hard for bees to get into the tiny opening to get the pollen so they use buzz pollination.  The bees grab hold of the yellow anthers and vibrate their bodies, which forces the pollen out and onto their bodies, where it gets distributed.

Hedgehog cactus, Echinocereus:

 

In Catavina, inland from the Pacific Ocean, we visited a cave of the Cochimis, the indigenous inhabitants of this area.

 

A steep 10-minute hike up huge boulders of the Sonora desert reveals a cave with some paintings that were about 4,000 years old.   I have no idea what dyes they used, but heard they were not from plants of this area.

There is the head of a hummingbird in the painting below: