Common names: DESERTWILLOW, DESERT-CATALPA Arizona, California, and Texas deserts: (Chilopsis linearis). Pink-lavender. April-August. Bignonia family. Size: Shrubby tree, 6 to 15 feet high.
Although a close relative of the Catalpa, the willow-like foliage of this small tree has given it the name Desertwillow. A small and inconspicuous part of the desert vegetation when not in flower, unnoticed among the heavier growth of trees and shrubs that crowd the banks of desert washes, the tree’s beautiful orchid-like flowers of white to lavender mottled with dots and splotches of brown and purple bring exclamations of delight from persons viewing them for the first time. Because of the beauty of the tree when in bloom, it is sometimes cultivated as an ornamental.
Leaves are rarely browsed by livestock, and the durable, black-barked wood is used for fenceposts. In Mexico, a tea made by steeping the dried flowers is considered to be of medicinal value. By early autumn, the violet-scented flowers which appear after summer rains are replaced by the long, slender seed pods which remain dangling from the branches and serve to identify the tree long after the flowers are gone.
Although Desertwillows are never found in pure stands, growing singly and rather infrequently among other trees and shrubs lining desert washes, the species is quite common below 4,000 feet across the entire desert from western Texas to southern Nevada, southern California and southward into Mexico.
LAVENDER
Lemaireocereus thurberi
Lophocereus schotti
Common names: ORGANPIPE CACTUS, SINITA; (PITAHAYA DULCE) Arizona desert: (Lemaireocereus thurberi). Pink lavender. May-June. Arizona desert: (Lophocereus schotti). Pink. April-August. Cactus family. Size: In clumps, stems up to 15 feet.
Two somewhat similar, columnar cacti occur in the United States only in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and in its immediate vicinity. Both are fairly common in northwestern Mexico.