Basin wiki · Plants
Olneya tesota · palo fierro
A slow Sonoran wash tree with iron-hard wood, listed with ocotillo and palo verde in the park’s south.
Ironwood is Colorado Desert flora: hotter washes and bajadas toward the park’s south and east, not the Morongo Valley woodland. The wood is famously dense. Leave wild trees where they stand; this is not firewood. Wikipedia and Calflora have the species account.
Fouquieria splendens
succulent · rain-response
Whip canes that leaf out after rain and carry scarlet flowers. More common on the warmer edges than on the Yucca Valley flats.
Morongo Basin +2
Parkinsonia florida
wash
The green-trunked wash tree of the park’s Colorado Desert, blooming yellow in a good spring.
Morongo Basin +2
federal · tourism
A national monument in 1936, a national park since October 31, 1994. Two deserts, and the reason Highway 62 gets crowded.
Joshua Tree NP +3