Shutdown aside, Joshua trees live an odd life
In the U.S. southwest, Joshua trees evolved a rare, fussy pollination scheme
BY SUSAN MILIUS 8:00AM, FEBRUARY 6, 2019
COOL TREES When winter gives way to warmer weather across the Mojave Desert, Joshua trees will bloom and wait for one special moth to visit and pollinate its flowers.
A year when vandals trashed a Joshua tree in a national park during a U.S. government shutdown is a good time to talk about what’s so unusual about these iconic plants.
The trees’ chubby branches ending in rosettes of pointy green leaves add a touch of Dr. Seuss to the Mojave Desert in the U.S. Southwest. Its two species belong to the same family as agave and, believe it or not, asparagus. And the trees bloom with masses of pale flowers erupting from a branch tip.
“To me [the flowers] smell kind of like mushrooms or ripe cantaloupe,” says evolutionary ecologist Christopher Irwin Smith of Willamette University in Salem, Ore. His lab has found a form of alcohol in the scent that actually occurs in mushrooms, too.
It’s tough to tell how old a Joshua tree is. Their trunks don’t show annual growth rings the way many other trees do. The desert trees became headline news in January when vandals trashed at least one of them at Joshua Tree National Park (SN Online: 1/12/19).
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