Online Pre-sale of Plants Has Closed

Phacelia crenulata

Online ordering of desert native plants for this year's Plant Festival has closed. Orders have been placed today and will be available for pickup at the Visitor Center patio on Friday, November 24. 2017. Extra native plants will also be available for walk-in sales. 

The Plant Festival runs from 9 AM to 3 PM or until all plants are sold. 

Last Day for Pre-Sale of Native Plants Is Next Week

In order to compile the orders for native plants and pick them up in time for the Plant Festival, the online preorder of plants will close on Thursday, November 16. Get 'em while they last.

Botany Society Plant Festival Speaker Confirmed

Pratt's Metalmark. Apodemia dialeuca pratti. ©Dennis Walker

Dr. Gordon Pratt, a lepidopterist at the University of California Riverside, has been confirmed at the Botany Festival Speaker. Dr. Pratt, a resident of Anza, will discuss local butterflies and the local plants upon which these butterflies depend.

If you've seen seen metalmark butterflies in the Holcomb Valley area in the San Bernardino National Forest you may well have seen a subspecies of metalmark named after Dr. Pratt.  Apodemia dialeuca pratti is Pratt's Metalmark pictured to the right. 

Dr. Pratt will be speaking Saturday, November 25, 2017, at 1:30 PM in the Visitor Center of the Anza Borrego Desert State Park. Admission is free.

Annual Plant Sale Date Announced

Fairy Duster. Calliandra eriophylla. ©Arie korporaal

The Anza Borrego Botany Society has announced the dates of its popular desert plant sale. The native plant sale will be held Friday,  November 24, 2017. The event will be held at the Anza Borrego Desert State Park Visitor Center patio. 

A pre-order for the desert plants you want to purchase has been posted on this website. All proceeds support the work of the society including its well-known botany speaker series. 

2017 Anza-Borrego Botany Society Plant Sale Order Form

Superblooms are a Smorgasbord for Bees

This Soundcloud broadcast of a Science Friday program focuses on the superbloom in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park and other areas along with California's Fading Wildflowers, and unusual behavior in bees  

From Science Friday: While desert flowers’ splashy colors may get all the attention, those rare blooms provide wild bees with a “smorgasbord of food,” says UC Riverside entomologist Hollis Woodard. She says that some of these buzzing desert homesteaders even feed on flower oils—an unusual diet for a bee.