The morning name for today, lurking no doubt in my subsconscious after days of looking at, thinking about, and posting about desert plants. The green plant:
(#1)
From Wikipedia:
(#2) In bloom
Fouquieria splendens (commonly known as ocotillo, but also referred to as coachwhip, candlewood, slimwood, desert coral, Jacob’s staff, Jacob cactus, and vine cactus) is a plant [family Fouquieriaceae; Fouquieria, with 11 species, is the sole genus in the family] indigenous to the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan Desert in the Southwestern United States (southern Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas), and northern Mexico (as far south as Hidalgo and Guerrero).
Ocotillo is not a true cactus. For much of the year, the plant appears to be an arrangement of large spiny dead sticks, although closer examination reveals that the stems are partly green. With rainfall, the plant quickly becomes lush with small (2–4 cm), ovate leaves, which may remain for weeks or even months.
… The bright crimson flowers appear especially after rainfall in spring, summer, and occasionally fall.
There was a F. columnaris plant in Stanford’s Arizona garden, but it died and wasremoved in 2004.
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