I woke up to snow in the Sandia foothills the other morning for the fourth time this fall. Given that snow hasn’t shown up until January or February in recent years, this year’s frequency of early snow seems like an excellent omen for a wet winter.
Despite the snow, a number of wildflowers which generally go unnoticed have bloomed much later into the fall than usual, including a profusion of Russian thistles. Their flowers are tiny, maybe 5mm in diameter, and they often sparkle in sunlight.
They’re generally white, pink, or a combination of the two. The thorns are prickly, but not nearly as sharp as they’ll be once they’ve dried up and become bona fide tumbleweeds.1
Down in the bosque,2 I saw some small trees blooming a couple of weeks ago. I’ve never noticed their little flower puffs before. I believe they’re called Roosevelt weed or New Deal weed (Baccharis neglecta).3
By last week, they’d matured into full-blown pom-poms, ready to send their seeds flying.
A fall favorite of mine, chamisa4 — which usually stops flowering in October — is actually still blooming in the foothills. I’m not sure I’ve ever taken a photo of it by itself, but I love the way it looks with other subjects. In this case, it's the tattered painted lady nectaring on it.5
Coming soon: Photos of all the other butterfly species I saw on chamisa this fall.
Tumbleweeds are non-native and invasive.
The bosque is the wooded area on both sides of the Rio Grande as it passes through Albuquerque. It is said to be the largest cottonwood forest in the world.
From an online PDF about Roosevelt weed:
This species, Baccharis neglecta, goes by the common names of Roosevelt weed, Poverty weed, New Deal weed and False willow. Though native to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, this plant was first widely recognized during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930’s. This plant readily appears in neglected, disturbed or out of production land which was widespread during the drought of the 1930’s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt inherited the Dust Bowl and the Depression when he assumed office in 1933. He initiated government programs to get people back to work among several of his “New Deal” programs. Since this plant was also becoming very noticeable about the same time, it became known as Roosevelt weed and New Deal weed. Perhaps not what a President’s inner circle would want as popular advertising, but the names stuck.
Chamisa has a pungent locker-room smell when it’s blooming; another of its names is stinkweed.
So sweet & Delicate looking, minus the thorns of course. Amazing the flowers you find this time of year! Yes, early moisture!