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Flora Of The Sonoran Desert
Flora of the Sonoran Desert includes six subdivisions based on vegetation types.Sonoran Desert Wildflowers, Richard Spellenberg, 2nd ed., 2012, Two are north of the boundary between the United States and Mexico, and four are south of the boundary. The flora of the Colorado Desert are influenced by the environment of the very dry and hot lower areas of the Colorado River valley, which may be barren, treeless, and generally have no large cacti. Flora of the Arizona Upland are comparatively lush, with trees and large columnar cacti that can withstand winter frosts. Those subdivisions of the Sonoran Desert which lie south of the international border are characterized by plants that cannot withstand frost. Evolutionary history and affinities Plants Annuals There are two seasons with significant precipitation, in the winter-spring months, and in the summer monsoon months. Annual plants mostly germinating during winter-spring precipitation tend to have closer affinities to flora of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vegetation Type
Vegetation classification is the process of classifying and mapping the vegetation over an area of the earth's surface. Vegetation classification is often performed by state based agencies as part of land use, resource and environmental management. Many different methods of vegetation classification have been used. In general, there has been a shift from structural classification used by forestry for the mapping of timber resources, to floristic community mapping for biodiversity management. Whereas older forestry-based schemes considered factors such as height, species and density of the woody canopy, floristic community mapping shifts the emphasis onto ecological factors such as climate, soil type and floristic associations. Classification mapping is usually now done using geographic information systems (GIS) software. Classification schemes Following, some important classification schemes. Köppen (1884) Although this scheme is in fact of a climate classification, it h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lophocereus Schottii
''Lophocereus schottii'', the senita cactus, is a species of cactus from southern Arizona and north-western Mexico, particularly Baja California and Sonora. Synonyms include ''Pilocereus schottii'' and ''Pachycereus schottii''., pp. 536–537 The senita cactus exhibits Mutualism (biology), mutualism with the Upiga, senita moth. The senita moth is the only Nocturnality, nocturnal pollinator of the cactus, and the moth relies on the cactus as a host for reproduction. References Echinocereeae Cacti of the United States Cacti of Mexico Plants described in 1856 {{Cactus-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the only U.S. state capital with a population of more than one million residents. Phoenix is the anchor of the Phoenix metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, which in turn is part of the Salt River Valley. The metropolitan area is the 11th largest by population in the United States, with approximately 4.85 million people . Phoenix, the seat of Maricopa County, has the largest area of all cities in Arizona, with an area of , and is also the 11th largest city by area in the United States. It is the largest metropolitan area, both by population and size, of the Arizona Sun Corridor megaregion. Phoenix was settled in 1867 as an agricultural community near the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers and was incorporated as a ci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parker, Arizona
Parker ( Mojave 'Amat Kuhwely, formerly 'Ahwe Nyava) is the county seat of La Paz County, Arizona, United States, on the Colorado River in Parker Valley. The population was 3,083 at the 2010 census. History Founded in 1908, the town was named after Ely Parker, the first Native American commissioner for the U.S. government. The original town site of Parker was surveyed and laid out in 1909 by Earl H. Parker, a railroad location engineer for the Arizona & California Railway. The town officially incorporated in 1948 and became the county seat for the newly created La Paz County on January 1, 1983. Camp Colorado and Parkers Landing The town's name and origin began when a post office called Parker was established January 6, 1871, at Parker's Landing and the site of the Parker Indian Agency, named for Ely Parker, on the Colorado River Indian Reservation, four miles downriver from the site of the railroad bridge of the modern town, to serve the Indian agency.John and Lillian Theobald ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecotone
An ecotone is a transition area between two biological communities, where two communities meet and integrate. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local (the zone between a field and forest) or regional (the transition between forest and grassland ecosystems). An ecotone may appear on the ground as a gradual blending of the two communities across a broad area, or it may manifest itself as a sharp boundary line. Etymology The word ''ecotone'' was coined by Alfred Russel Wallace, who first observed the abrupt boundary between two biomes in 1859. It is formed as a combination of ''ecology'' plus ''-tone'', from the Greek ''tonos'' or tension – in other words, a place where ecologies are in tension. Features There are several distinguishing features of an ecotone. First, an ecotone can have a sharp vegetation transition, with a distinct line between two communities. For example, a change in colors of grasses or plant life can indicate an ecotone. Second, a change in physiogn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atriplex Hymenelytra
''Atriplex hymenelytra'', the desert holly, is silvery-whitish-gray shrub in the family Amaranthaceae, native to deserts of the southwestern United States.Wildflowers of the Sonoran Desert, Richard Spellenberg, 2nf ed, 2012, Mojave Desert Wildflowers, Pam Mackay, 2nd ed. It is the most drought tolerant saltbush in North America. It can tolerate the hottest and driest sites in Death Valley, and remains active most of the year. The common name refers to the leaves that are shaped similar to holly, but the plants are not related. The toothed leaves and the small reddish fruits borne on the plant give it a passing resemblance to the unrelated European holly. Range and habitat Desert holly grows in alkaline locations such as desert dry wash and creosote bush scrub in the Mojave Desert and Sonoran Desert down to Baja California.http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/get_JM_treatment.pl?3084,3089,3112 Jepson In the Sonoran Desert it grows in northwestern Mexico, western Arizona, and so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psorothamnus Spinosus
''Psorothamnus spinosus'', or ''Delea spinosa'', is a perennial legume tree of the deserts in North America. Common names include smokethorn, smoketree, smoke tree, smokethorn dalea, and corona de Cristo. Distribution ''P. Spinosus'' is native to the desert washes in the Colorado Desert in Southern California, the Sonoran Desert in western Arizona, and most of eastern Baja California state including several northern Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez) islands, The tree is common in Joshua Tree National Park, where it is called the smoketree. The range of ''P. spinosus'' is centered north-south along the Lower Colorado River Valley ranging northwest into the eastern Mojave Desert, west into mostly all of the Colorado Desert-(subsection of Sonoran Desert), and east of the Colorado River in southwestern Arizona's Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parkinsonia Microphylla
''Parkinsonia microphylla'', the yellow paloverde, foothill paloverde or little-leaved palo verde; syn. ''Cercidium microphyllum''), is a species of palo verde. It is native to the Southwestern United States in southeastern California and southern Arizona; and to northwest Mexico in the states of Sinaloa, Sonora, and Baja California. The plant is mostly found on slopes, and is one of the most common trees of the Sonoran Desert. Description ''Parkinsonia microphylla'' is a bristling, upright-branching tree. The species is slow-growing, sometimes living for several hundred years. It typically grows to heights of around , although rarely it can reach tall. The leaves are yellowish green, and during extensively dry and hot periods the tree will shed them. It has the characteristic of performing photosynthesis in its bark (hence the green color), and this is what allows it to survive leafless in hotter periods. The flowers are found on the end of a branch, small, pale yel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olneya Tesota
''Olneya tesota'' is a perennial flowering tree of the family Fabaceae, legumes (peas, beans, etc.), which is commonly known as ironwood, desert ironwood, or palo fierro in Spanish. It is the only species in the monotypic genus ''Olneya''. This tree is part of the western Sonoran Desert complex in the Southwestern United States. Description The desert ironwood grows as a bush or tree, reaching heights of about and average trunk diameters of about . Exceptionally, in larger protected washes it can reach greater height and a more massive trunk. In younger trees, the bark is gray, shiny, and smooth; in older trees the bark is broken open. The tree is evergreen, but can lose its leaves if temperatures fall below . In continual drought conditions the leaves will be lost. The leaves are bluish-green and pinnately compound. They are arranged on a petiole, long, with 6–9 leaflets (or variously up to 15, with 7 opposite and one terminal), each measuring . At the base of each pinn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desert Dry Wash
Desert dry wash is a North American desert vegetation type (or biome) occurring in the flat bottoms of canyons and drainages that lack water at or near the surface most of the year, and are subject to periodic severe flooding events.Pam MacKay, Mojave Desert Wildflowers, 2nd Ed., p. 20-23 Desert dry wash is contrasted with desert riparian vegetation, which occurs in desert canyons and drainages where there is year-round water at or near the surface. Plants must either be able to survive the severe flooding conditions or be able to reestablish themselves before the next flooding event. Some of these plants have evolved so that in order for their seeds to germinate, the seeds must be scarified or abraded by tumbling sand, gravel, and rocks during the flooding event. They must then quickly send down roots deep enough to be able to tap into deep underground water reserves, in order to survive the dry period after the flooding. Common dominant species of the desert dry wash include smoke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larrea Tridentata
''Larrea tridentata'', called creosote bush and greasewood as a plant, chaparral as a medicinal herb, and ''gobernadora'' (Spanish for "governess") in Mexico, due to its ability to secure more water by inhibiting the growth of nearby plants. In Sonora, it is more commonly called ''hediondilla''; Spanish ''hediondo'' = "smelly". It is a flowering plant in the family Zygophyllaceae. The specific name ''tridentata'' refers to its three-toothed leaves. Distribution ''Larrea tridentata'' is a prominent species in the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts of western North America, and its range includes those and other regions in portions of southeastern California, Arizona, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, New Mexico, and Texas in the United States, and Chihuahua, Sonora, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Zacatecas, Durango and San Luis Potosì in Mexico. The species grows as far east as Zapata County, Texas, along the Rio Grande southeast of Laredo near the 99th meridian west. Des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ambrosia Dumosa
''Ambrosia dumosa'', the burro-weed or white bursage, a North American species of plants in the family Asteraceae. It is a common constituent of the creosote-bush scrub community throughout the Mojave desert of California, Nevada, and Utah and the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and northwestern Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, Chihuahua). ''Ambrosia dumosa'' has been studied to determine allelopathic interactions with creosote bush, ''Larrea tridentata'', which produces a chemical that inhibits the growth of ''A. dumosa.'' Other studies have suggested that ''A. dumosa'' roots produce a chemical that causes them to grow away from conspecific roots, preventing competition for water resources. In addition to burro-weed, ''A. dumosa'' is also commonly called white bursage, and burrobush. Description ''Ambrosia dumosa'', a form of ragweed, is a highly branched shrub 20 to 90 cm in height. The younger stems are covered with soft gray-white hairs. Approximately ob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
