Dreaming of Flowers of the Southwest Desert

This post features four books this year from the reading room at Historic Santa Fe Foundation. Today I’ll be speaking to the first of the four selected. I chose this particular book on a very cold winter day, contrasting this book about flowers on a day I was missing warmer weather and colorful plants. I chose this book to encourage hope for better days, when there is a little more color and people can enjoy the warmth outside. The book is “Flowers of the Southwest Deserts” by Natt N Dodge with drawings by Jeanne R. Janish, published by the Southwestern National Monuments, National Parks Service, and US Department of the Interior in 1951. This book was written “(1) to introduce the common desert flowers to newcomers to the Southwest; and (2), to give a little background of information about the plants’ interesting habits and how they have been and are used by animals, by the native peoples, and by the settlers.”

Desert flowers inspire hope in me. What is more resilient than a flower in the middle of a desert?

There are three types of plants that have adapted to the harsh life of the desert: drought-escaping, drought-evading, and drought-resisting. Drought-escaping plants are known also as ‘desert quickies’ or ephemerals. These plants take advantage of the rare but heavy rainfalls and develop rapidly to blossom and mature their seeds. These types of precipitation are generally during mid-summer or mid-winter and this way the plants spend their energy then and ‘escape’ the hotter and drier parts of the year. Drought-evading plants drop their leaves and go dormant when it is too hot and dry, and only flower when the conditions are better. Drought-resisting plants do just that: resist. Commonly seen in cacti, drought-resisting plants have adapted systems to store water, use it sparingly, and keep moisture loss to a minimum. (Cacti reduce moisture loss by not having leaves and being able to photosynthesize through their stem’s green skin.) Other drought-resistant plants have waxed leaves to retain moisture. These adaptations make it possible for them to still flower.

Common flower names are by no means common, they differ depending on what part of the country you are in. Some names are given to multiple plants and some plants have multiple common names. One example given by this book is ‘sagebrush’ that is applied to ‘any shrubby plant with grayish foliage’. Did you know that true sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) rarely grows below 6,000 feet? I definitely did not and I have apparently called many bushes sage incorrectly.

Another example are yuccas, New Mexico’s state flower, often confused with agaves, dasylirion (sotol), and nolinas (beargrass). There are multiple types of yuccas, but yuccas have leaves that come to a point and they have bell-shaped flowers. Nolinas have grass-like blades that are not pointed like yuccas. Their flowers are ‘drooping and plume-like’ with many small flowers grouped together. Sotol’s leaves are ‘ribbon like’ and again do not come to a point, but are often split. They have tiny flowers unlike the yucca bell-like blooms. Agaves have leaves that do come to a point, but the leaves are much wider and can come in different colors, like blue or striped. The flowers on agaves are small, making up flat groupings on a very tall stalks, reaching 8-25 feet tall.

As the author points out, scientific names are hard to remember and have been known to change with time. In the Southwest you can add that beyond the scientific name most plants might be referred to by a ‘common’ name in multiple indigenous languages, Spanish, English, and other languages. I appreciate the author’s honesty in saying; “this booklet was written by a layman for the use and enjoyment of other laymen, it violates a number of botanical, or taxonomic principles. These violations have been committed with no spirit of disrespect, but in an effort to avoid confusion, conserve space, and keep a complicated and involved subject as simple as possible.” All that to say is if you see a flower that might fit some of these descriptions but know it by another name, only a botanist would know who is correct. Enjoy the flower, maybe smell it, leave it for the next person, bug, or animal to enjoy.

I highly enjoyed this book. It is written in an approachable manner, accompanied by beautiful drawings of plants with little stick figures for scale. It makes a good guide to identifying indigenous flowers but I would encourage anyone who comes across it to read it or at least flip through it. I would also encourage you to take ten minutes, go outside and count how many flowers you find and appreciate them.

~Giulia Caporuscio, HSFF Research Historian

Here are some of the first flowers at El Zaguan for 2025.

Daffodil or Narcissus

Apple blossoms, Malus

Sweet violet, Viola odorata (I think)

Nanking cherry, Prunus tomentosa