Jimena´s Legacy

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This page has photos from our time spent around the Mulegé river and valley.
We were able to take a walk around Cerro Equipalito, which is the hill with the windsock at the Serenidad airstrip. The shrubs were all in fine form with lots of leaves. There were many small annual wildflowers just taking off. This area is very interesting because it has both desert scrub and closer to the water, sand dunes with desert scrub as well as a few plants that mainly occur in beach sand dunes.
This is the view looking west from up on Cerro Equipalito (Mulegé by Serenidad airstrip) Nov 2008	This is a similar view Oct 2009
Here's an endemic shrub found on Equipalito and other rocky areas around Mulegé and Bahía Concepción. White Palo Adán (Fouquieria burragei). Flowers can be totally white or pale pink.	View of the Faro (lighthouse) from Equipalito. The lomboy (Jatropha cinerea) and Sweet Mangrove (Maytenus phyllanthoides) were very green.
We tried to find other sights among the rubble left by the hurricane and flood. These are two shots from the Mulegé river.
View of the Orchard Park and the hills behind. Foreground is Amaranth (Amaranthus watsonii)	Don Chano´s Park with all the weedy annuals taking over, including Amaranthus watsonii and Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)
Near Colonia Ranchito in the Mulegé valley. A field of mostly Amaranth (Amaranthus watsonii)	About 6 km out in the Mulegé valley.
We stopped just off the "main" road in a gravelly arroyo to check out the plants about 6 km from the highway (via the Ice House road). The Lomboy (Jatropha cinerea) were spectacular as were the Palo Blancos (Lysiloma candidum), Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa var. torreyana) and Palo Verdes (Parkinsonia microphylla). The cardons (Pachycereus pringlei) were practically bursting at the ribs.
	This was one of the first places we came across where the wild cucumber vines (Vaseyanthus insularis) were covering the ground and climbing up into shrubs and trees.
More wild cucumber vines (Vaseyanthus insularis) climbing across ground and on the right, up into a Lomboy	A mesquite with a mass of debris. The highest branch in the mass (from a cholla) is about 9 ft up.
Lots of annual grasses along the arroyo banks.	Also, the dreaded Buffel Grass (Pennisetum ciliare), a pesky exotic...
Hidden among the grasses we also found a few surprises, including this tiny Purplemat (Nama sp.)	Below (left) are the longest Coyote melon (Cucurbita cordata) vines we´ve ever seen. They were at least twice the length of our car, making them about 30 ft! Lots of flowers and melons. On the right is an old female flower with the young fruit developing below.

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