New Mexico Flora

"One morning I started out along the curving path behind our garden and it was one of the most lovely days I had ever seen, so still and mellow and fragrant, and every leaf and every flower petal seemed new and as though they had opened within the hour and were breathing quietly and deeply in the silent gold and blue day." -Mabel Dodge Luhan

I just finished reading Edge of Taos Desert today and this lovely quote inspired me to post my favorite plant photos from the Taos trip.  The desert never ceases to amaze.  I don't understand how plants survive out there in the hot sun with hardly any water, let alone produce their incredible flowers.  I'm not sure what the plant is in the photo above, but just look at it...those wild, frilly-headed flowers just can't get enough sun! And I wasn't laying on the ground to get this photo; the plant was probably six feet tall!  If one had the assignment to create a plant that was joy incarnate this would be it.  Which reminds me of another Mabel quote that is the perfect ending to this post:

"I had a sudden intuition right then that here in this country life could come to one more concretely than in other places, and that meanings that were shut up in words and phrases out in the world could incorporate themselves in living forms and move before one.  Ideas here might clothe themselves in form and flesh, and word-symbols change into pictured, living realities."