Coyote Crossing

Burning of sorts metaphorical and otherwise

The day before yesterday Annette and I took the Jeep up into the hills, found ourselves a shady spot in a jumble of boulders in Joshua Tree National Park. It was deliciously cool, perhaps as low as 95 degrees, and ash-throated flycatchers raised

Naming the Joshua Tree Part 4: Scientific American

The author of the paragraphs quoted below, excerpted from a longer piece on California plants then assigned to the Liliaceae, is Francis M Fultz (1857-1948). Fultz is best known for his popular guide to the SoCal chaparral, The Elfin-Forest of

Regarding the use of the phrase “Yucca Palms” in 19th Century discourse

An excerpt of From San Francisco to Yuma City by “G.D.F.”; June 6, 1878, published in the July 1878 issue of the Monthly Journal of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers

Here we begin the ascent of the Sierras via the Tehachapi Pass, “over the

KCET and Naming The Joshua Tree part 3

1) Those of you not connected to me on Facebook or Twitter may not have gotten a reminder of late that I have been writing a weekly column at KCET, the Los Angeles public TV station’s website. They show up every Wednesday at 10 AM Los Angeles time,

Writing @KCET

Whoops. I mentioned this in a few places this morning, but not here. My writing is going to be featured every Wednesday morning on the website of KCET, Los Angeles’ flagship (though non-PBS) public television station. Here’s the first installment,

A six-word open letter to the Environmental Movement

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Disappearing forests

My days and nights are upside down these days. I work until late. I sleep until late. I am less enthusiastic than I could be. Maybe it’s a hangover from the huge amount of bad news this month, which at first I followed assiduously and helplessly. 

Uncertain Future for Joshua Trees Projected with Climate Change

This image, from April 2004, shows mortality of some adult Joshua trees resulting from years of hot-dry climate. During the prior year, this area received only 17 percent of its average precipitation and was 4 degrees F warmer than

Stalk drearily in the high mesas

“Nothing the desert produces expresses it better than the unhappy growth of the tree yuccas. Tormented, thin forests of it stalk drearily in the high mesas, particularly in that triangular slip that fans out eastward from the meeting of the

“How to Become a Yucca Moth”: An interview with researcher Jeremy Yoder

As persistent readers of this blog will know I’ve been working for some time on a book on Joshua trees, and one of the more interesting facets of the Joshua tree’s lifestyle is the tree’s reproductive partnership with two species of moths,

On Teutonia

The verges of Cima Road are lined with penstemon flowers just past their peak, with desert milkweed and evening primrose, datura full open despite it being midday. The Teutonia Peak trail winds past mainly spent desert bloom. Mojave mound and

The more things change

Francis B. Sumner (1874-1945) — shown above lounging in the Mojave Desert in a 1914 photo by Joseph Grinnell — was a professor of biology at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He served as vice president of the American Academy for the

Almost five years ago

It was late when I took this, after a day of temperatures in the mid-100s, and the temperature had fallen down into the double digits. Matthew and I watched one thunderstorm after another track past. One of them lit a small fire on the north

Walker Pass

I may be heading up to Walker Pass this coming weekend to sleep out, watch the stars, perhaps treat myself to a campfire. It's been a while since I've had a campfire. I don't have them in the desert much anymore since the fires of 2005, and Zeke

Hagen Canyon

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Son of Naming the Joshua Tree

Hey, remember that post I put up a few weeks back about how the story of how the Joshua tree was named is most likely folklore? The one where I said:

But in more than a decade of looking, I have seen not a single reference to the phrase “Joshua

About the book

Writing proceeds apace on the Joshua tree book. I’ve finished a chapter that introduces the dynamics of the grass-fire cycle, and am getting ready to dive into the next one without stopping for breath.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking spurred by

They’re cute when they’re small

I got email a few days ago from Coyote Crossing reader Anthony Edwards, who asked:

I was wondering if you had seen Burton Frasher’s photos of Centennial Flat from the 20s? I am going to try and find some of the Joshua Trees if they are still

Why Joshua trees are shaped the way they are

The first time I awoke in the Mojave I was cramped uncomfortably into the passenger seat of my girlfriend’s Honda in a roadside rest area on Route 58 near Boron. It was not yet light. I had agreed to drive her car from Los Angeles to the Bay Area

Science!

After enough time spent paying attention to a tree species, you tend to come up with a bit of data even if you’re not really trying to.

This Joshua tree is at Keys View in Joshua Tree National Park, right around the southern limits of the