I was pleased, but not particularly surprised, to see soapweed yuccas blooming when I went out to Ojito last month. They routinely seem to thrive in dry, sandy, rocky areas.
Unlike our state flower, which is the soaptree yucca,1 soapweed yuccas seldom grow more than two or three feet high. Their buds almost never actually become flowers for various reasons. Often aphids form an ever-so-slowly-moving orange crust on the buds and suck all the water out of them. Other critters come along and eat entire buds the aphids haven’t gotten to, and some even chomp off the tops of the stalks. Yet all the yuccas I saw at Ojito were aphid-free and pristine.
I was surprised to see the flowers below growing right out of the sand there. I believe they’re Nama stevensii, aka Stevens’ fiddleleaf. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any kind of Nama before.
I could never have imagined that such pretty little flowers would be growing straight up out of the sand, yet there they were. The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center says their native habitat is “sandy, gypsum soils,” and indeed, there’s plenty of gypsum in and near the Ojito Wilderness.2
I saw yet more hoodoos that day …
… and other fantastical rock formations.
I also ran into another beautiful flower that was new to me, feather dalea, aka featherplume. I shared a couple of photos of it last month, but the one below is my favorite.
Earlier posts about Ojito are here and here.
New Mexico has a ridiculous number of, um, official state symbols (you can learn more here). We’ve just become the very first state in the union to adopt a state aroma, which is “green chile roasting in the fall,” a laudable choice in my opinion — if you feel you must have a state aroma, that is.
Another area in Ojito I’ve spent some time exploring is White Mesa, so called because of the large amount of white gypsum there.
The featherplume os so beautiful!
Great pix as always! 💜
So beautiful. I’d love to go for hike there and snap some photos. But until I make it out there I’ll enjoy yours. 💕