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WILDFLOWER FLOURISHES AND FLOPSSONORAN DESERT: LOWER COLORADO RIVER VALLEY
Most of the flower 显示 shown here were at the following localities:1: The Coachella 谷 (Palm Springs, Banning Pass, Indio, etc.) 2: Eastern San Diego County, esp. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park 3: El gr和desierto, including the Pinacate volcanic field 4: 莫霍克沙丘, a northern extension of the Gran Desierto.  Tecolote campground in the Pinacate in March of a normal, dry year. Ocotillo almost always 花 but there were no annuals this year.  The same area in March of 1998, one of the wettest years on record Yuma Rainfall (inches):
Wildflower patches were few in 1970. The areas shown here probably received extra rain from isolated showers or runoff that collected in drainages. 
一大堆 Mimulus bigelovii (monkeyflower) in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, CA. 
El gr和desierto dunes 
Some washes in the Pinacate supported st和s of annuals. These two had different soil textures 和 were 用任何一种 Baileya pauciradiata (沙漠金盏花)或 月见草摘要 (沙丘 月见草). Yuma Rainfall (inches):
 这是什么? year with almost no rain looks like. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
Banning Pass near Palm Springs is on the extreme western edge of the Sonoran Desert. Storms funnel through the pass from the coast 和 drop perhaps twice as much rain here as Palm Springs gets in the rain shadow of the San Jacinto Mts. 
A hillside covered with 花. Mt San Jacinto is across the valley. 
This hillside is coarse loose gravel; almost the only perennial vegetation is the teddy bear chollas seen among the 花. 黄色的是 波斯菊bigelovii 蓝色的是 钟穗 campanularia (沙漠蓝铃). The deep blue is difficult to capture on film. 
The 此沙丘 in 加州 west of Yuma, Arizona were carpeted with dune evening primrose. 
莫霍克沙丘 east of Yuma were also wet 和 colorful, with more s和 verbena than primrose. See more images of the desert 和 other places at the Ramblin' Cameras website Yuma Rainfall (inches):
Even in dry years some places may get lucky. In 1974 the Coachella 谷 (e.g., Palm Springs) received just enough rain to grow some 花 on the dunes. The dark green mounds are Russian thistle (tumbleweed), a pernicious exotic weed that in wetter years can smother native wild花. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
Yuma received little rain in the winter of 1976-77. But in September 1976 the remains of Hurricane Kathleen dropped several inches of rain in the desert to the west. The result was stunning. Anza-Borrego Rainfall (inches):
 Aerial views of the Palen s和 dunes near Desert Center, CA. The white patches are 月见草摘要 (沙丘 月见草).  On the ground the scene was incredible. 
Hayfield Dry Lake west of Desert Center, CA filled with water from Hurricane Kathleen. The next spring the lake bed was a nearly impenetrable mass of Argemone munita (prickly poppy) three feet tall. I have never seen 花 in this lake before or since 1977. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park had a banner year. The first photo is a hill of Eschscholtzia parishii (relative of 加州 poppy); the second is a hill of Mimulus bigelovii (沙漠 monkeyflower). 
Banning Pass exploded again in 1978. This hill is accessed by the Verbenia (sic) Avenue exit of I-10. 波斯菊bigelovii 和 钟穗 campanularia. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
The Pinacate turned very green in 1982; there must have been more rain here than in Yuma. 但 were very few showy-flowered species among these carpets of annuals so little color developed except for the verdant green. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
The dunes of the Gran Desierto were almost completely covered with annuals in 1983. 我也是 late to catch the color. 
Field of annual globemallow (Sphaeralcea cf. coulteri) on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation west of Tucson. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
No annuals, but ocotillo almost never fails to bloom. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
In many years the Pinacate receive little or no rain. This is the normal condition for this extremely arid region of the Sonoran Desert. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
In 1991 the Pinacate received just the right amount 和 timing of rain to sprout skeleton weeds (Eriogonum 仕达屋优先计划.). These plants are only a few inches tall 和 grew only where a layer of volcanic cinders mulched the fine silty soil below. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
The Pinacate had a fairly wet year but most of the annuals were inconspicuous species. A lavender tint can be seen from 为数不多的 Nama demissum (purple mat) showing through the taller plants. 把......与......相比较 photo of the same site in 1998. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
Another wet year, but little seems to have come of it. This scene on the edge of the Gran Desierto is green with seedlings, but we haven’t found anyone who saw flower 显示. Yuma Rainfall (inches):
* Winter 1999-2000 was extremely dry. 但 were a few isolated storms that triggered small areas of wildflower blooms. 
惊喜! Almost the entire 450-mile stretch of Interstate 10 between Tucson, Arizona 和 Palm Springs, 加州 was parched 和 brown this winter. 但是一个 isolated storm brought rain to a tiny patch of s和 dunes west of Blythe, 加州. These images were taken on December 27, 1999 at the Wiley's 好退出. The s和 verbena (lavender) were past their peak 和 drying out, but the evening-primroses (white) 和 desert sun花 (yellow) were just beginning to flower. 有一个 类似的 patch of wild花 in the remote center of the otherwise shriveled Vizcaino desert in Baja 加州. After a nearly rainless winter, a major storm in March drenched much of the Sonoran Desert. Such late rains do not trigger germination of annuals in the desert of southern Arizona or 加州, but the same species respond differently in more arid subregions. Puerto Lobos is on the coast of Sonora at the boundary between the Lower Colorado River 谷 和 Central Gulf Coast subregions. The past few years have been so dry that many of the shrubs were dying from drought. The March rain triggered mass germination of annuals 和 perennial shrubs (below). This area should have turned purple with lupines in April, but it is so remote that most likely no photographer was there to document it. 
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