Tour of Northern AZ

[Gafoto]

I took a whirlwind trip over Labor Day weekend to check out some agave in northern Arizona. The weather started out with rain and the forecast was grim. Fortunately I managed to avoid the worst of it and just had to deal with some humidity.

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Early morning coffee at Marble Canyon overlook.

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First stop: Flagstaff. Massive Yucca baccata seedpods were all over the place. I've never seen so many! These yucca grew in the sun, shade, on rock or in the pine duff above 7000 feet. Impressive.

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Fairly small blue Agave parryi growing up above Flagstaff. These plants grow in small pockets of soil and fissures in volcanic rock up above 7000 feet. They see plenty of snow and cold temperatures but enjoy a very well drained location and some winter sunshine.

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Not many flower stalks from these plants this year. Maybe the heavy snowpack discouraged any plants from going for it.

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Next stop was just above the town of Strawberry at about 6400'. Some lovely echinocereus (probably bakeri).

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Ouch.

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Nice chunky blue-green plants growing amongst the manzanita.

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My final stop for the day was to hike out on the Hellsgate trail just east of Payson. Lots of parryi along the way growing in the granitic soil.

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I was looking for an unusual plant someone tagged on iNaturalist but couldn't find it. I mostly found lots of nice looking parryi and a few oddballs. Hard for my untrained eye to know what is some bizarre domesticate vs what is just growing in a non-ideal location.

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Very rugged country out here.

[Gafoto]

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Another oddball. Or maybe just a shady parryi?

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One lonely Agave toumeyana. I didn't see a single other toumeyana plant growing here. This poor plant was huddled under a tree, the single flower stalk it had thrown up was eaten back to a nub by cattle.

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A massive cholla, one of the largest I've ever seen.

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The next day I visited a spot Gee.S has posted about before near Young, AZ. Here, at around 5400 feet there are lots of chrysantha looking plants. Very nice looking!

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As I go up the slope the plants get harder for me to identify.

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They have quite a bit of character though!

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Echinocereus (bonkerae?)

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I climbed all the way to the top and poked around at 6100+ feet but the trees were thick at that point and I only found two odd agave growing apart from their siblings.

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Another curious plant growing close to the hilltop ruins.

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Ancient native american ruins are all over this hilltop area and are very impressive. Not just one or two walls but dozens. So much work.

[Gafoto]

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As I come back closer to 6000' I realize I missed the best plants. Here there's just a massive variety. Some leaning much more towards chrysantha and some obviously just straight parryi. This was one of the biggest, almost 4' across.

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Fields of stalks out here. It seems the cattle here have a strong preference for Agave parryi stalks though. Many of them are chewed out of existence while the more chrysantha leaning plants have survived.

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The variety of plants growing next to each other. Obvious parryi scattered amongst the hybrids. I spent quite a bit of time wandering from plant to plant here and took an absurd amount of pictures.

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[Gafoto]

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One more from the Young area.

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I drove south through the Sierra Ancha, enjoying the views. Plenty of Agave parryi growing all through this area.

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My last stop in the Sierra Ancha was at a location overlooking Roosevelt Lake. The toumeyana here were really suffering from the heat and drought of the summer.

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The dozens of stalks drew my eye from quite a ways away.

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In rough shape.

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Loads of variety here with lots of smaller and larger plants. Lots of them looked like they needed a drink.

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[Gee.S]

05: E. coccineus
06 has been chewed by deer.
09: Probably introgressed A. parryi / A. chrysantha

Domesticates are always few and far between, but especially so above 5000'.

[Gee.S]

Looks like you found Parker Canyon. The toumeyana pop has suffered a shocking decline this past year.

[Gafoto]

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I went for an morning bike ride in Sedona and found some of the lovely parryi here. To my eye the leaf shape and size is very chrysantha-ish but the powder blue looks like parryi.

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Not bad scenery.

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The last stop was above the top of Oak Creek Canyon near 7200'.

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These plants were growing in shady ponderosa forest as an understory plants. Smaller, but still very pretty.

All in all a great trip. Thanks to Gee.S for the inspiration to visit these lovely locales.

[Gafoto]

Looks like you found Parker Canyon. The toumeyana pop has suffered a shocking decline this past year.

There were a few hiding under trees but they were mostly toast. Sad to see. I visited one small population near Payson that seems to be doing pretty well. Barely higher elevation there but maybe it got more rain?

[Gee.S]

A. parryi var. couesii in the Sedona area. Too far west for chrysantha, which I have never found west of Oak Creek.

[mickthecactus]

A fine article gafoto. Thanks!

[jam]

I spent quite a bit of time wandering from plant to plant here and took an absurd amount of pictures.

Please feel free to share some more. Absolutely amazing scenery, many adepts for my new desktop background.

[Melt in the Sun]

Thanks for sharing! The brief commentary is appreciated - with GS's field trips I often have no idea why a given photo is relevant.

[Gafoto]

Went for a Christmas Eve Sierra Ancha gravel ride. Turned out to be a bit of a hike too since mud was very unbikeable above 5000’ or so. All in all still very pleasant and incredibly gorgeous out. Saw what I think was a A. delamateri site on the way in. Forgot to take pictures but I think it’s on it’s last pup.

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Lots of very nice chrysantha lower down but as I hiked up to around 5000’ there are a few oddballs.

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Mostly there’s just loads and loads of great looking chrysantha. Loads of stalks all over. Obviously the population is doing ok here.

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This guy is a real freak. It may not look it but those leaves are almost 7” wide in some spots! Very unusual.

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At 5800’ there are pure looking parryi.

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Also pure(ish) chrysantha. Growing side by side.

I have some nice looking hybrid phots I’ll have to edit up and post. They’re all posting upside down right now

[Gafoto]

Ok, here's a few more hybrid shots.

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It becomes very apparent which plants are heavily leaning towards the chrysantha genetics and which are parryi based on the blooms. A few were pretty messy and looked quite intermediate. It's much easier to compare bloom stalks when they're 15 feet apart (parryi on the left, chrysantha on the right).

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All over the map with size and shape here.

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[Gafoto]

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Chrysantha-ish and parryi-ish.

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If I didn't know there were both relatively pure species in the area I would have a devil of a time identifying some of these.

[Gee.S]

All A. chrysantha in this area are introgressed with A. parryi to one degree or another. All of them. If you want to see what A. chrysantha is supposed to look like, you'll need to visit some sites near the type locality.

[Meangreen94z]

Great pictures. Thank you, I’m really enjoying them.

[Gafoto]

All A. chrysantha in this area are introgressed with A. parryi to one degree or another. All of them. If you want to see what A. chrysantha is supposed to look like, you'll need to visit some sites near the type locality.

On Christmas I drove up above Apache lake in the Superstitions and the Chrysantha are much more consistent in form there. The toumeyana are also abundant but….not the best form for that species. I thought they were schottii at first. Where is the type locality for chrysantha?

[Gee.S]

All A. chrysantha in this area are introgressed with A. parryi to one degree or another. All of them. If you want to see what A. chrysantha is supposed to look like, you'll need to visit some sites near the type locality.

On Christmas I drove up above Apache lake in the Superstitions and the Chrysantha are much more consistent in form there. The toumeyana are also abundant but….not the best form for that species. I thought they were schottii at first. Where is the type locality for chrysantha?

West of San Carlos Reservoir. Any pop within 25 miles south or 20 miles west of the Reservoir will do. Most other chrysantha pops are "impure", so to speak. Differences are dramatic. You'll find plenty of snaps here: Habitat: First Foray into Santa Teresa