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Wild Sunflowers |
Autumn in Sedona
By Beverly Lehnhardt
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Sedona.biz
In New England, autumn is ushered in with crisp nights, cool days, and a plethora of
red, gold, and flaming orange foliage. The smell of burning leaves is carried
along by gusty fall breezes, and people dig out their bulky sweaters and cozy knits
packed away since last spring, and take long drives
in the country.In the Sedona desert,
however, fall approaches more subtly. We notice shorter days and
cooler nights, but crisp isn’t a word we use to describe the weather
until a bit later in the season. We continue dressing in
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Pampas Grass |
shorts and T-shirts,
plan picnics, and go on with summertime activities, hardly altering our behavior
at all. In fact, the only way I even knew it was ‘officially’ fall was because
of the notation on my calendar—September 23, First Day of Autumn—and the
colorful autumnal photograph accompanying the month of October.
For the most
part, our desert flora doesn’t trumpet the cooler temperatures that accompany fall’s arrival with a burst of color;
rather it quietly hints at fall with a slight change in the colors and types of
plants sending forth shoots.
The wild sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) that have waved at passing
vehicles from roadsides all summer long, their smiling golden faces tilted
sunward, look less joyous and will soon fade away. I know that when these
jubilant-looking flowers disappear that fall is just around the corner.
Another harbinger of fall is the appearance of the white, silken plumes of the
pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana,) a large perennial grass native to
Brazil, Argentina and Chile. These showy plants flower when the days get shorter
with plumes that can rise to an impressive height of twelve feet, making them
difficult to miss.
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Fishhook Barrel Cactus |
One striking desert plant that blooms in late summer and early fall is the
Fishhook Barrel Cactus (Ferocactus wislizenii), so called because of the
hook at the end of each spine. The spectacular orange or orange-yellow blooms
form in a ring around the top of the cactus; bees love the flowers and birds and
other desert animals enjoy the bright yellow, pineapple-shaped fruit.
It is during the fall that squirrels and other hibernating mammals gather seeds
and other food to get them through their winter sleep. You can often spot them
foraging for seeds, cactus fruit—including the fruit of the Fishhook Barrel
Cactus, and vegetation.
Human residents of the lower desert also enjoy the slightly cooler daytime
weather and comfortable sleeping nighttime temperatures as well as the subtly
changing landscape.
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