The Baja is an amazing place, filled with wonderful beaches, majestic mountains, awesome deserts, just incredible landscapes. The Baja is also filled with amazing biodiversity, in part because of the high degree of endemism, and this diversity is yet another reason why the Baja worth visiting. And if you include the Gulfo de California (Sea of Cortez), with its amazing biodiversity, the Baja region is one of the most biologically rich regions of the world. I was especially impressed by the diversity of cacti, and succulents in general. I do love the desert, the climate is harsh and unforgiving, the plants and animals are especially well adapted to such brutal reality, and evolution continues to add to the amazing number of species able to adapt to the desert habitat and all that comes with life in such a harsh environment. There are generally considered to be four major desert areas in the Baja, including the San Felipe desert, the Central Coastal desert, the Vizcaina desert, and the Magdalena Plain desert, running from north to the south. I really enjoyed driving though these desert landscapes, and I wish I new more about the botany of the Baja, but I tried to capture some of the diversity of the Baja, especially in terms of cacti, with my camera. I also wish I knew more about the diversity and taxonomy of members of the Family Cactaceae, and the almost 130 taxa (or more) in the Baja, some of which are endemic, found on the Baja and nowhere else in the world, such as the boojum tree. I have included photographs of the few of the most common species of cacti (and others) which I saw during my travels throughout the Baja. I have included photos of some yet to be identified cacti as well, just because I liked the photos. If you know the taxonomy of any of the species shown in photographs without a legend, please let me know. I will continue to sift through my images and pull out (and hopefully identify) other examples of plants on the Baja, just amazing plant diversity, just amazing botany. Help with the plants, mostly cacti, which I was able to identify, provided by a wonderful web page, and research project, The Flora of Baja California, thenat, San Diego Natural History Museum. There are piles of information available on their web page, a searchable database, maps, photos, and more. Check it out, got to love a good herbarium, and all that comes with an amazing plant collection.
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AuthorBrian C.L. Shelley, Ph.D. Archives
May 2019
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