Driving south through Joshua Tree National Park the terrain transitions from the high Mojave Desert to the lower Sonoran Desert. The vegetation also changes and as soon as you leave the Joshua Trees you come into the Cholla Cactus Garden and the Ocotillo Patch. I found the Ocotillo to be a very fascinating plant. We were lucky to see it while it was flowering. The plant has beautiful blooms and is quite tall, some of the examples we saw were about 15 feet high. According to an NPS interpretive sign, Ocotillo is able to shed and re-grow its leaves up to 5 times each year depending on the availability of water or lack thereof. The desert is so fascinating!
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