By Spades Washington. Photos by John Washington and Spades Washington. If you haven’t visited the Albuquerque Botanic Garden give it a try, you won’t be disappointed. I recently visited with my family and the botanical gardens exceeded my expectations. The weather was perfect, cool yet sunny and was a perfect day to be outside and […]
The Thorny Bougainvillea
The beautiful-but-thorny bougainvillea is ubiquitous throughout the Southwest, so much so that I almost never notice them. The bright “bracts” (specialized colored leaves) surround and visually overwhelm tiny flowers that are so small as to require magnification to fully appreciate. The always-hard-to-spell (at least for me) name derives from French Navy admiral Louis Antoine de […]
King of Saguaros
Within the past year I’ve happened upon TWO “cristate,” or “crested” saguaro cacti. This one is just off Apache Trail near Roosevelt Lake. The crest mutation is currently thought to occur in one out of about 10,000 or so individuals. Over 2000 examples have been documented across the Sonoran Desert by the Created Saguaro Society. […]