Ocotillos produce clusters of bright red flowers at their stem tips, which explain the plant’s name.
Ocotillo means “little torch” in Spanish — Images by kenne
Waiting It Out
Desert display
as Saguaro’s spiny arms
raise to the darkening blue sky.
Days of heat waves
chase Ocotillo flower buds
drooping slowly in the mauve air
very still … and then,
with the distant rumble of thunder
and a flash of lightening,
comes a first drop.
Coming fast, the rain begins
a flood within the gulch
and there, from nowhere,
from the nothing dust,
from the ether
reconstituted
as out of a mirage
appears by the side of the road …
a toad.
— Sue Mason
Ours are still just coming out with green leaves. We’re hoping for blossoms, but we don’t know if that happens at all in the first year after planting them. Still, we’re happy they survived the frost in February.