New Mexico is in BLOOM!

[janx]

Driving from ALB south today to attend a faculty meeting, I was absolutely amazed at the wildflowers in the landscape. Orange, purple, yellow, red, pink, white--all of these with the colors of the dirt, the shapes and colors of the mountains, and the magnificent sky! Apparently, the rains brought out a magnificent late summer bloom. The swaths of purple looked like sage, and the orange stalks looked like something related to penstemon--but no, these have star-shaped flowers. The yellow might be related to yarrow--does anyone know?

I'm so glad I moved here last year. Is the late summer bloom normal for New Mexico? Last year there was a terrible drought, and I didn't see them.

[TygrBright]

1. Yep, fabulous...

...up here around Santa Fe we have fields of gold, sheets and sheets of gold crownbeard and paper daisies and the chamisa are starting. In a few days the asters will gather steam and then it will be purple and gold, with patches of peach/burgundy, white, pink, etc. It's just amazing. Naturalists are saying they are seeing blooms of wildflowers here that haven't flowered in years.

I think this is pretty much a one-off based on the rain, but I did notice a good show of crownbeard and asters and chamisa last year, too.

observantly,
Bright

[LeahD]

2. Chamisa (native shrub) and wild asters bloom in September,

but we're seeing a very unusual display/variety of flowers this year, due to the exceptional rainfall. There are huge swaths of yellow on Hwy. 14 north of Cedar Crest and Sandia Park, and these aren't the typical annual sunflowers that grow along the roads. With so many varieties of yellow wildflowers I'm not sure what they are! Snakeweed is also blooming yellow now. The purples can be wild asters, or if they're low-growing plants, they're verbena. Tall, bright orange plants may be scarlet globemallow, because they're blooming on Hwy. 14 too. And then there are the white, mounding blackfoot daisies. Glorious, just glorious!

[RoadRunner]

3. janx, I got flowers on my place that I've never seen before

the ag folks down at New Mexico State University say the've seen plants that were thought to be extinct blooming this fall. This is....not...normal.... but what is in New Mexico?