More Blooms

I've been taking more photos of the evidence of spring around our neighborhood, and I thought that I would share one more with you. This is an ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens). While it is not technically a cactus, it has cane like sticks that are covered in short and lethal thorns. In the spring it produces small two inch leaves and when it actually blooms, flag like clusters or orange blooms at the very top of the canes. For most of the year, they are brown and very scary. Ocotillos abound in the desert along highway 8 between Phoenix and California. Clever and resourceful people have used them as posts for their cattle fence. I would never cross that fence.