Desert Flowers Of the Palm Springs Area

When we were traveling on the east coast last year, I was obsessed with the wacky wild variety of mushrooms we found. Now that we are in a much dryer area with little shade, we are seeing no mushrooms, but here I am obsessed with the desert flowers.  

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve found that we like the desert landscapes a lot, but now that it is spring, a beautiful array of flowers have popped up making them even nicer. I think I am particularly fascinated by the flowers that grow out of cacti, because I do not think of them as flowering plants. All the photos below are from hikes or wild areas we visited - there were lusher examples in some of the more manicured/human maintained areas, but I wanted to focus on the natural ones.

Arizona Lupine

A flowering plant in the legume family (?).

Very pretty. I love that it is basically growing out of the rocks, as many of these plants are.

Based on the AI and my research, my best guess is that this is a Globe Cactus, sometimes called the pincushion cactus. Those small red “beads” flower into white and yellow flowers. It was very striking.

A member of the Scorpionweed family - many of them are cultivated as honey plants and they are not weeds. Some of the members of the family actually cause a mild rash if you touch it.

Don’t touch.

An ocotillo - we saw lots of them earlier in the year, but they didn’t have those pretty flowers at the top.

Hiding behind the Creosote Bush is something that really surprised me. I can’t believe how high these flowering stalks grow. But I also can’t tell what it is (I even asked the AI 🤷🏻‍♀️).

Castilleja - more commonly known as prairie-fire or paintbrushes. Seen in the mountains near Idyllwild.

Kingcup cactus, growing out of a granite rock. And sporting my favorite color.

Seen in Joshua Tree National Park.

A snow plant - seen on a hike high above Idyllwild. Turns out it is a parasitic plant that lives off the mycorrhizal fungi that attach to tree roots. It can’t photosynthesize like normal plants because it has no chlorophyll. LOVE that red!

Who knew a Joshua Tree would flower like this? It looks like an alien creature. We saw so many amazing examples in Joshua Tree National Park.

Cylindropuntia Ganderi - a member of the cholla family of cacti and more commonly known as Gander’s Buckhorn cholla. Another interesting color for cactus flowers.

A Beavertail Cactus. Growing out of the side of a big granite boulder. I just love how the cacti have these pretty pink flowers growing out of the tops of them.

A Mojave Yucca, seen in Yucca Valley! Again, flowers growing in the middle of spiney plants are just remarkable. Check out that color.

A Cholla - we saw so many of them in Arizona, but none that were flowering at the time. The delicate looking flowers surrounded by all those spines!