All it takes is just a little rain.

And that’s what we have had so far this spring. Just a little. We could use a bit more. But there’s been enough. Click on the images to see larger versions.

Just down the lane, like red jewels set in sandstone, are clumps of Indian Paintbrush. This is the Wyoming state flower, but you can find them all over the West. At higher, wetter elevations, they’re more lush and green. Here on the edge of the desert, the leaves are more narrow to guard what moisture they get.

Not a showy flower, this young Mormon Tea plant has tiny yellow blossoms and a bright green color in the spring. It’s more formally known as Ephedra and you really can make a nice tea from the brewed stems. But it’s now banned as a dietary supplement in the US. It took a while to get the ban into effect, due in large measure to the efforts of one of Color Country’s infamous politicians, Orrin Hatch. At the time, Hatch’s son was working for a firm hired to lobby Congress and the FDA on behalf of ephedra manufacturers.

After baseball player Steve Bechler died during spring training and the medical examiner found that ephedra toxicity played a “significant role,” the FDA finally lurched into action. With the media spotlight now on ephedra, Hatch switched positions, “…it has been obvious to even the most casual observer that problems exist,” and called FDA action to regulate ephedra “long overdue.” Since Hatch was primarily responsible for preventing ephedra from being regulated in the first place, Time described his statement as “a dazzling display of hypocrisy.” (Information from Wikipedia)

I’ve always said that Color Country has the best politicians money can buy!

But there’s nothing illegal about brewing up a cup in the privacy of your own home. It’s best if you pick nice fat, ripe green stems in the fall. Mashing them up a bit helps too.

The Desert Primrose, sometimes called the Evening Primrose because the showy white flowers close up in the heat of the day and open again at night, has always seemed to me to be one of the contradictions of the desert. The lush, showy blossom looks like it would be at home in Hawaii, yet it’s found in some of the driest landscapes around, often growing in pure desert sand and rocks. How do it do that?