Although New Mexico is usually thought of as a state with very few flowers because of the arid conditions there are really many flowers that bloom in certain environments or under special conditions. Nearly all of these flowers are also very very drought tolerant. People who live in climates that have much more rainfall may find that some of these flowers will do well in their gardens especially in years when drought conditions prevail.

 This is the desert four o'clock. I suppose that strictly speaking this should go in the f list but since it is on my computer as the number four (4) I shall leave it here. Four o'clocks are perennials that grow from an underground tuber. As you can see from the picture the blooms open one color and fade to another as they age. It is a spreading plant and can cover a five foot space. In the fall as soon as the first frost hits the tops die down and dry up and there is nothing to show where the plant was. Next spring the new shoots will appear. Click here: Desert Four O'Clock Seeds from Alchemy Works - Seeds for Magick Herbs and Pagan Gardens

Rocky mountain Pentstemon grows best up in the mountains but with additional water in the garden it also does well. This clump gets bigger every year. It blooms in early summer and sets seed profusely. There are a number of named varieties of this and some selections. Click here: Google Image Result for http://homepages.tesco.net/~Barbara.Kane/website/Pictures/pent1.jpg

We have a number of pentstemons that are native to New Mexico and probably the most sensational one we have is pentstemon ambiguous aka the bush pentstemon. It's flowers are white to pink and the foliage has a grassy look. Here is a picture of one taken last summer in one of the vacant areas here on the west side of the river. This is just one of the plants in the open field next to a new roadway. Since that roadway has been widened it is probable that the entire field will be turned into a parking lot for some new business complex soon.  

The bush morning glory is one of my favorite native wild flowers. Like the four o'clock it grows from an underground tuber. It is perennial and grows from a very large underground root that the Indians used to use for food. The botanical name for it is Ipomea leptophylla. The bush morning glory requires drier conditions than any other morning glory. Before the highway from Albuquerque to San Ysidro was rebuilt there used to be many of them along that roadway. I expected that they would all die because of the repaving but they just moved over to the side of the road and grew there. They go dormant as fall approaches and leave the impression that they are dying but come back again early in the spring. Only a few of them were able to survive this year because of the extreme dry conditions. Some places in New Mexico got less than 5 inches of rainfall. That is less than other places get in one rainstorm.Click here: http://spuds.agron.ksu.edu/iple.htm

This small flower is the paper flower. It is called this because the blooms have a papery texture which dry up and retain their bright yellow color. The plant is a small bushy mound. The botanical name for it psilostrophe tagetina. It grows quite easily from seed sown where it is to grow. I find that it requires sandy soil and dry conditions. Click here: Woolly Paperflower (Psilostrophe tagetina)

The rarest of all the New Mexico wild flowers that I have found is the relative of the lupine, sophora stenophylla. It is found in only a few sites, one of which is here in Paradise Hills on the mesa west of Albuquerque. The first year it was found here was a thrill for me as I collected a sample and was able with the help of my friend Ellen Reed to key it out. Dr. William Martin who was the taxonomist for New Mexico confirmed the identification.

 Unfortunately, the site is now largely occupied by a new road and more housing. The owner of the lot where it was originally found, a transplanted New Yorker, thinks anything that grows wild is a weed and he mows the site several times each summer. This does nothing to improve the stand. The flowers are fragrant and it sets seeds very sparingly. So far we have not been able to transplant or even start the seeds for further cultivation. For more information Click here: ITIS Standard Report Page: Sophora

A recent addition to the gardeners palette of flowers are the gauras. Gaura Lindenheimeri can be found in many gardens with its airy butterfly-like flower floating above the plant. Here in New Mexico we have a close relative that can grow in extremely arid environments that other Gauras can not tolerate. The one in the picture was found growing in pure windblown sand on the west mesa. It is Gaura coccinea. If grown with too much water it becomes a rangy weedy plant but under its favorite conditions it becomes a lovely bouquet of white, pink and red flowers. Click here: Scarlet Gaura, Gaura coccinea

The desert marigold is another native that can make a big splash of color in very dry conditions. I find it along roadsides and in the sandy arroyos north of our home. Some gardeners use it as a ground cover growing in desert covered with fine gravel as you can see in this picture.  Click here: Desert-Marigold - DesertUSA

Our state flower is the yucca. This specimen is growing in a neighbors  yard and receives only natural rainfall. The flowers are fragrant and frequented by insects. The rolling hills in southeast New Mexico are one place that they can be easily found and the seeds collected. Click here: Yucca & Yucca Moth

The claretcup cactus grows into a prickly mound in a matter of years. However, as I had stated before, this year there was not enough rain even to keep my plants alive. Perhaps it was because they were too small. This one belongs to my neighbor. Click here: Hedgehog cactus or Claret cup cactus

One native that grows like a weed and in fact is a bit weedy but still very popular here because of its ability to tolerate the arid climate and nutrient poor soil is the Chocolate Flower. (Berlandiera lyrata). It is called the chocolate flower because it smells rather like chocolate. However, I find the smell unpleasant. It reseeds with great vigor and comes up in cracks and sidewalks. I am becoming sorry that I ever planted it. Click here: Plant Select: Chocolate Flower

Here is another view of the sophora stenophylla that grows along the roadside here in Paradise Hills. It clearly shows the arid conditions that favor its growth. In addition there is an underlayment of caliche in this location and the roots of the plant grow on top of the caliche layer and travel for 20 to thirty feet to the curb where new plants will appear next year.

Each spring the roadsides here in Paradise Hills and in many other places in New Mexico are tinted purple with the flowers of the scorpion weed (Phacelia neomexicana). The fuzzy sticky foliage collects sand as the spring progresses and turn the fiddle shaped bloomscape to a sandy color. Click here: Purple Scorpion Weed

This roadside on the west mesa is decorated with hundreds of plants of the paper flower (psilostrophe tagetina). Notice the sandy conditions.
 

For a detailed list of desert wild flowers Click here: Desert Plants & Wildflowers Index - DesertUSA

For the web site for Plants of the Southwest where you can find seeds and/or plants of many of our wildflowers Click here: Plants of the Southwest - Wildflowers