Zion National Park - Festoons of Flowers

Away from the river and on ledges along the canyon walls are stands of pinyon pines and junipers, trees more typical of the arid Southwest. On the highlands beyond the canyon rims, the common trees are ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, white fir, and quaking aspen. But you don't have to climb all the way to the top to see them: the pines and firs also find suitable living conditions in some of the cool, damp side canyons. There too you can look for the bright blossoms of such moisture-loving plants as monkey flowers and the brilliant red spikes of cardinal flowers.

The park's summer-long parade of wildflowers, in fact, frequently competes with the rocks themselves for the visitor's attention. Even iron-stained Navajo Sandstone seems dull compared to a scarlet slickrock paintbrush growing from a pocket of sandy soil that has accumulated in a crack on the canyon wall. The same crevice might also contain a clump of desert phlox covered with dainty pink blooms or a cluster of puccoon topped with an explosion of yellow trumpets.

Rugged-looking most of the year, the cacti of Zion also have their season of special beauty; beginning in April they put on a splendid show of color. The very names of claret cup and purple torch describe the brilliance of their blooms, while sprawling mounds of the closely related beavertail cactus are often nearly covered with rosy pink blossoms.

All the cacti are succulents, plants that survive drought by storing water in their fleshy stems. They have no normal leaves (their pores would permit too much water to escape from the plants), and instead manufacture food in chlorophyll-bearing cells in their stems. Most, however, are amply armed with spines, structures that help to reduce water evaporation and also discourage animals form eating them.

Among the park's other prominent plants are sego lilies, the state flower of Utah; the edible bulbs of this lovely white lily saved the Mormon pioneers from starvation in 1848. Another, sacred datura, found throughout the canyons, produces spectacular white trumpets several inches long. An eerily beautiful sight by the light of a full moon, the short-lived flowers open late in the afternoon and wither the following morning. Depending on the season, yarrows, wild marigolds, asters, penstemons, and a host of others accent the scenery with splashes of color.