Joshua Tree National Park Logo
The naturalist reaches for a botanical guide to explain this vegetative spectacle. Sometimes they are full and bushy, other times spindly and open in their overall shape. The tree relies on the moth for pollination and the moth relies on the tree for a few seeds for her young—a happy symbiosis. Spring rains may bring clusters of white-green flowers on long stalks at branch tips.
Joshua Trees

Sometimes they are full and bushy, other times spindly and open in their overall shape. Seuss book, you might begin to question your map. Where are we anyway? In wonder, the traveler pulls over for a snapshot of this prickly oddity. The naturalist reaches for a botanical guide to explain this vegetative spectacle. However, modern DNA studies led to the division of that formerly huge family Joshua Tree National Park Logo 40 distinct plant families. Like the California fan palm, Washingtonia filifera, the Joshua tree is a monocot, in the subgroup of flowering plants that also includes grasses and orchids.
This close relative can be distinguished by its longer, wider leaves and fibrous threads curling along leaf margins.
Both types of yuccas can be seen growing together in the park. The Joshua tree provides a good indicator that you are in the Mojave Desert, but you may also find it growing next to a saguaro cactus in the Sonoran Desert in western Arizona or mixed with pines in the San Bernardino Mountains. Years ago the Joshua tree was recognized by native people for its useful properties: tough leaves were worked into baskets and sandals, and flower buds and raw or roasted seeds made a healthy addition to the diet.
By the midth century, Mormon immigrants had made their Joshua Tree National Park Logo across the Colorado River. Legend has it that these pioneers named the tree after the biblical figure, Joshua, Joshua Tree National Park Logo the limbs of the tree as outstretched in supplication, guiding the travelers westward. Concurrent with Mormon settlers, ranchers and miners arrived in the high desert with high hopes of raising cattle and digging Joshua Tree National Park Logo gold.
Miners found a source of fuel for the steam engines used in processing ore. Today we enjoy this yucca for its grotesque appearance, a surprising sight in the landscape of biological interest. Look for sprouts growing up from within the protective branches of a shrub.
Young sprouts may grow quickly in the first five years, then slow down considerably thereafter. The tallest Joshua trees in the park loom a whopping forty-plus feet high, a grand presence in the desert. Glacier National Park To Great Falls Mt can make a rough estimate based on height, as Joshua trees grow at rates of one-half inch to three inches per year.
Some researchers think an average lifespan for a Joshua tree is about years, but some of our largest trees may be much older than that. Spring rains may bring clusters of white-green flowers on long stalks at branch tips. Like all desert blooms, Joshua trees depend on just the perfect conditions: well-timed rains, and for the Joshua tree, a crisp winter freeze. Researchers Glacier National Park To Great Falls Mt that freezing temperatures may damage the growing end of a branch and stimulate flowering, followed by branching.
You may notice some Joshua trees grow like straight stalks; these trees have never bloomed—which is why they are branchless! In addition to ideal weather, the pollination of flowers requires a visit from the yucca moth. The moth collects pollen while laying her eggs inside the flower ovary.
As seeds develop and mature, the eggs hatch into larvae, which feed on the seeds. The tree relies on the moth for pollination and the moth relies on the tree for a few seeds for her young—a happy symbiosis. The Joshua tree is also capable of sprouting from roots and branches. Being able to reproduce vegetatively allows a much quicker recovery after damaging floods or fires, which may kill the…
Alerts In Effect

Some researchers think an average lifespan for a Joshua tree is about years, but some of our largest trees may be much older than that. The Joshua tree provides a good indicator that you are in the Mojave Desert, but you may also find it growing next to a saguaro cactus in the Sonoran Desert in western Arizona or mixed with pines in the San Bernardino Mountains. At the base of rocks you may find a wood rat nest built with spiny yucca leaves for protection. The tallest Joshua trees in the park loom a whopping forty-plus feet high, a grand presence in the desert.