On the trail around Tortugas Mountain this morning, while I watched Research Associate Becca pursuing a jackrabbit up a 45-degree slope, I spotted a lone flower on a Strawberry Pitaya Cactus. It is the first pitaya blossom I have seen this spring, and it is just a harbinger of profuse beauty to come: when the entire mass of cactus is completely covered in gorgeous flowers. But now I am conflicted. Which is more beautiful, the singular beauty of the lone flower or a bevy of beauties peopling the entire plant? Whatever. For some reason a line from Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn" comes to mind: "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." Of course, the poet was addressing an urn, and I'm talking to myself.
This vista represents what we here at COC like most about our desert landscapes: exotic-looking plants in a spare countryside with distant blue or purple mountains in the background. In this case the mountains are the Organs, a perennial sight in this section of the Chihuahuan Desert.
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