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Page 2 - California II The following morning I visited the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Pasadena. It was huge and very impressive, though not immaculately kept up. I would recommend it though, as there were many palms and a huge collection of Australian species. I don't think I saw everything there was to see. After that, I headed south and east.
Nolina parryi near San Juan Capistrano. I went on quite a wild goose chase for this one, only to find that none of the plants had any seeds. These populations on the seaward slopes of the mountains are scattered and few, and under threat from urban development.
Eventually I lucked out and found these N. parryi subsp. parryi loaded with seed on the east slopes of the San Jacinto Mountains, where it grows up to about 4,500'.
Opuntia chlorotica also grows up to about 4,500' in this area.
Also, a very nice silvery form of O. basilaris can be found up to about 3,900'.
I was surprised at the large size Agave deserti subsp. deserti reaches in this area - they look almost like A. parryi, though there is much variation between individual plants. This is about as high up as it grows, around 4,000' in the San Jacinto Mountains. Yucca schidigera is also common here; it is found as high as 4,300'.
Another cholla type Opuntia with a nice Agave deserti in the background.
There are also quite a few forms of Echinocereus engelmanii here. Ferocactus cylindraecus grows a little farther down, around 2,000'.
And this area is also home to some gigantic Yucca whipplei, with rosettes exceeding 6' across!!
The Providence Mountains in the middle of the Mojave Desert are home to these nice Yucca schidigera, and some interesting cacti. Agave deserti subsp. simplex is also here (somewhere), but I passed it by.
Joshua tree forest near Cima. One of the most spectacular and impressive places I visited (plant-wise) was the Kingston Mountains. Surrounded by desert, little known and quite out of the way of everything, this mountain range is home to a surprising variety of cacti and other plants and would be worth a future visit to collect more cool stuff! The one thing I hoped to find there, but did not, was Agave utahensis subsp. nevadensis.
Ferocactus cylindraecus grows as high as 5,000' in the Kingston Range - surely a much hardier form of this species than is usually grown in gardens, and very ornamental! I was a little too early for seeds; I collected a few but they may not ripen.
More huge Ferocactus in the Kingston Mountains, with cholla type Opuntia and Yucca schidigera. There were also very large clumps of Echinocereus engelmanii here.
Topping it all off, Nolina parryi subsp. wolfii, one of the main plants I sought to collect on this trip, was even huger than I might have imagined; it looked completely out of place and made Yucca schidigera look wimpy. These giants lined the north facing slopes of the higher mountains up to 5,500'.
A whopper Nolina with a 4' thick trunk and multiple heads - I wonder how old it is? |
