Phemeranthus aurantiacus, the former Talinum aurantiacum, is now in Talinaceae, the flameflower family, “a family of two genera and 28 species.” There’s more; the genus Phemeranthus is a combination of two Greek words and means the flower lives for one day. The specific epithet, aurantiacus refers to the color of the flowers which can orange or yellow. Now you know.
I love the way you see those orange or yellow flowers out in the grassland in the heat of the day. For the photos used here I wandered out in the thick of a monsoon “pudding day” and snapped some shots. A sweaty endeavor, but it is such an interesting plant and flower. Flameflower is found from 2,400 feet to 6,600 feet out in the desert scrub or grassland of southern Arizona. For me it is always part of the muggy monsoon days of summer and magical the way it appears on the land that surrounds our place near the banks of the ol’ Guajolote.
I was sort of right, but mainly wrong about poison ivy’s Latinized name. The species found in Arizona is Toxicodendron rydbergii, formerly Rhus radicans...
I love following the drainages out of the mountains and across the deserts, observing all the plants and animals that follow them as well....
The green dodo (Dodoneaea viscosa var. angustifolia) was a very common landscape plant around Tucson back when I first started working in a wholesale...
