Desert sunflowers

This morning we went down to the Coachella Valley Preserve for a hike - what an incredible place! This is the view to the west, over a huge expanse of desert sunflowers. Other flowers blooming were verbena, lupine, and sand blaze flowers. Incredible.

But even more interesting were the palms - there are a couple of oases with 30 foot tall fan palms, with their long, sweeping skirts. The only palm trees that don't drop the fronds so they create wonderful habitats for animals (first extra). Standing amongst the towering "trees" (they aren't actually trees), is a wondrous experience. They only grow here because of the water seeping up from the San Andreas fault which runs directly below the oasis.

Also including a picture of some palms around McCallum Pond which had a good amount of small fish in it. It used to be home to pupfish but they were nearly wiped out by crayfish that were accidentally introduced into the pond in the 1950s.