Flora of Glorietta / Juanito Canyons and the Yaqui Meadows Area
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
Left: a white variant, with a normal blue version, of common phacelia, Phacelia distans, in Juanito Canyon. Top right: Glorietta Canyon wall near Parking Area. Bottom right: View down Juanito Canyon from just below its junction with Glorietta Canyon. All pictures taken by Tom Chester on 15 March 2009. Click on pictures to get larger versions. Also see View toward saddle at top of Glorietta Canyon and ABDNHA's Glorietta Canyon Photo Gallery 12 March 2009.
Introduction
Procedure For Compiling The Checklist
Interesting Species
Interesting Monsoonal Flood Event
Checklist
Introduction Glorietta Canyon, aka Glorieta Canyon, is a small treasure just southwest of the town of Borrego Springs that was given that name in 1978 "because the little canyon was a glorious place" (Lindsay, Anza-Borrego A to Z, 2001, p. 179). It used to be little-known, but has become popular in recent years for at least two reasons: the Visitor Center and the Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association staff recommend it to visitors; and it was listed as a half-day hike in Halford's 2005 Hiking in Anza-Borrego Desert book.
The spelling is Glorietta in the Lindsays' two books and Glorieta in Halford's book.
Many people have posted photographs online from this canyon. A search for "Glorietta Canyon" "Borrego Springs" as well as "Glorieta Canyon" "Borrego Springs", on 26 February 2011 found a total of about 700 webpages, many with photographs, about evenly divided between the two spellings.
However, this Canyon is not suitable for large numbers of people. The single-lane access road has essentially no pullouts, and there is comfortable parking for only perhaps 20 or so vehicles at the beginning of the Canyon. So many people went here on 14 March 2009, after a glowing report was written about the bloom there and everyone was then recommending that visitors go there, that a large traffic jam was created on the access road.
Traffic jams and overuse are a problem whenever one particular location is highly recommended. It is good to remember that whenever one particular area is in good bloom in the later winter / spring in the Borrego Desert, there are almost always a number of similar areas with good bloom. If Glorietta Canyon is in good bloom, it is highly likely that Little Surprise Canyon, Hellhole Canyon, Borrego Palm Canyon, and Henderson Canyon are all in equally good bloom. (Fall / early winter blooms from summer monsoons are different, and can be much more local.)
Juanito Canyon is a connecting canyon to the north, that can be part of a longer loop hike. Juanito Canyon is strikingly different since it is a more bouldery, north-south canyon, with small drops that need to be slowly negotiated around (no rock-climbing ability is needed; just the ability to find a good route to step down the drops). It also gives views to the north of Borrego Mountains, the Borrego Badlands, and the eastern part of the Santa Rosa Mountains.
One can enjoy the flowers in the immediate parking area of Glorietta Canyon, but there are many more treasures awaiting farther up Glorietta Wash, and in the higher part of the Canyon. Halford gives three hikes here:
- an easy 1.6 mile round trip hike, with 400 feet of elevation gain, up the Wash to where it gets bouldery;
- a moderate 1.0 mile round trip up Glorietta Canyon to a saddle at its head, with 400 feet of elevation gain; and
- a strenuous 3.5 mile loop, with 700 feet of elevation gain, up Glorietta Canyon, down Juanito Canyon, and back to the parking area by circling the base of the hills.
The following maps shows the access roads (labeled black lines) to Glorietta and Juanito Canyons, the hiking routes (blue lines), and the areas surveyed for the Plant Checklist presented below:
The driving route to Glorietta Canyon given in Halford is no longer possible, since the "fenced water pump road" is closed by a gate at its southern end. Fortunately, an easy detour is available, shown on the above map, as follows:
Driving Directions: Take Borrego Springs Road south of Christmas Circle for about 3.9 miles, and turn right on the dirt road immediately past the water pump road. This turn is soon after Borrego Springs Road curves to heading directly east, between mile markers 9 and 8 (mile markers decrease to the south).
Drive 0.8 miles south to a junction with another dirt road, then turn right. This road will turn left 90° at mile 1.2 (0.4 miles after the junction). At mile 1.7, turn right onto a signed Glorietta Canyon Road, and park at about mile 2.9 or so. The dirt roads are well graded, and most passenger cars should have no trouble getting to about mile 2.8, where there are a few boulders that some passenger cars may not be able to negotiate. If you don't want to drive past them, just park at that point.
Juanito Canyon can be reached separately via Tubb Canyon Road and an unmarked dirt road heading south.
See also Fred Melgert and Carla Hoegen's Hiking Routes in this area, with lots of pictures, as well as their Glorietta Canyon area plant list.
Procedure For Compiling The Checklist This checklist was compiled from 13 days of field surveys, from vouchers, and from iNaturalist observations.
Field Surveys
- The 15 March 2009 survey was done by Tom Chester, RT Hawke and Kate Shapiro, assisted by Shaun Hawke for part of the survey, and encompassed Glorietta Wash and the Glorietta / Juanito Loop, shown as the blue lines in the top map above. A total of 115 species were found that could be reliably determined to the species level.
- The 22 February 2011 survey was done by Tom Chester in the area south of the parking area, and was done while unsuccessfully attempting to locate the Mexican bladder sage, Salazaria mexicana, vouchered from that area. This survey is shown as the red lines on the top map above. A total of 73 species were found that could be reliably determined to the species level.
- The 28 December 2011 survey was done by Tom Chester and Kate Harper on the Glorietta / Juanito Loop, as well as the area immediately south of the parking area. That survey primarily was to check out the germination here, but also resulted in increased abundances for some species, and the addition of two species.
- The 27 January 2013 survey was done by Tom Chester, Mike Crouse, Keir Morse, Kate Harper, Karin Vickars and Lance Holmberg. It was a targeted survey for two vouchered species: Mexican bladder sage, Salazaria mexicana = Scutellaria mexicana; and spearleaf, Matelea parvifolia. Glorietta Canyon and Glorietta Wash were surveyed, and another 0.60 miles of the drainage south of Glorietta Wash was covered, yielding 14 new species. The green lines in the top map above indicate the additional areas surveyed on this date.
We found the Scutellaria mexicana this time, at a new location for it, but we failed to find the Matelea parvifolia.
- The 1 February 2013 survey was done by Tom Chester, Mike Crouse, Angelique Herman and Adrienne Ballwey. A portion of that survey is shown in the above map by the pink lines in the top map above, with the survey continuing into the canyon below Pinyon Ridge. We call this canyon Salazaria Canyon since it contains many plants of that species, from its bottom to its top along Pinyon Ridge.
- The 5 February 2013 survey was done by Tom Chester, James Dillane, Mike Crouse and RT Hawke, with Kate Harper helping with the first part. We continued surveying up Salazaria Canyon and its western ridge to a knoll at 2800 feet elevation.
- The 11 February 2013 survey was done by Tom Chester, James Dillane, Kate Harper, Julia Lynam and Adrienne Ballwey. It was a focused search along the Glorietta / Juanito Loop solely looking for the Matelea. We still didn't find it.
- The 5 March 2013 survey was done by Tom Chester and Adrienne Ballwey, to see the Matelea parvifolia discovered by Mary Jo Churchwell on 28 February 2013, and to survey up to the Olneya tesota discovered by Lance Holmberg earlier on 5 March 2013.
- The 27 November 2013 survey was done by Tom Chester, Walt Fidler, Kate Harper, Lance Holmberg and Jim Roberts, surveying Glorietta Canyon and uppermost Juanito Canyon, primarily for monsoonal plants. This was the first survey of uppermost Juanito Canyon.
- The 1 December 2013 survey was done by Tom Chester, Walt Fidler and Adrienne Ballwey, up the drainage south of Glorietta Wash. We only covered an additional 0.1 mile of that canyon in several hours, due to its ruggedness.
- The 21 February 2020 survey was done by Tom Chester, Walt Fidler, Nancy Accola, Don Rideout, Steve and Gaylee Rogers, of the Juanito / Glorietta Loop.
- The 25 February 2020 survey was done by Walt Fidler, of uppermost Glorietta Wash, uppermost Juanito Canyon, and the ridge between.
- The 26 February 2020 survey was done by Tom Chester, Walt Fidler, Nancy Accola, and Don Rideout, of upper Juanito Canyon and Glorietta Wash.
Vouchers
The vouchers for the Glorietta Canyon / Yaqui Meadows area come from a search on 25 January 2013 of the Consortium of California Herbaria. Additional vouchers from the Yaqui Pass area were obtained from a search on 16 February 2013.
For the Glorietta Canyon / Yaqui Meadows area, the Consortium records were searched for vouchers with coordinates between 33.17 and 33.21° N. Latitude, and -116.41 and -116.36 E. Longitude. This search returned 98 vouchers.
Additional searches were done for any voucher with Glorietta or Yaqui Meadows in its locality field, which added five vouchers for this area, as well as 62 vouchers from the area slightly farther east.
The vouchers were separated into two areas: a Glorietta Canyon area which included vouchers in Yaqui Meadows in the area shown on the map above; and an Eastern area of vouchers to the east of this area, but west of the north-south section of S3.
The vouchers in the eastern area were mainly from private property, 52 from the Tom and Rose Beltran property, with an additional 9 vouchers from the nearby state park property. All 61 of those vouchers were collected by Larry Hendrickson and Tom Beltran.
There were 102 vouchers in the Glorietta Canyon area, after deleting one voucher that was badly georeferenced that was actually from the Old Kane Springs Road far to the southwest.
The 102 total vouchers consisted of 92 unique taxa.
The dominant collectors by far were Kim Marsden and L. Hendrickson, who sometimes collected together and sometimes separately. Marsden was a collector on 72 vouchers, and Hendrickson was a collector on 43 vouchers. No other collector name was on more than 7 vouchers, except for the associate collectors of Marsden and Hendrickson.
(For the sharp-eyed and curious, the second voucher of Matelea parvifolia had a typo in its name in one voucher.)
For the Yaqui Pass area, the Consortium records were searched for vouchers with coordinates between 33.14 and 33.17° N. Latitude, and -116.37 and -116.31 E. Longitude. An additional search was made for vouchers with Yaqui Pass in their locality. A review of the localities resulted in eliminating 14 vouchers as not being in the target area, leaving 117 vouchers, of 67 unique taxa.
iNaturalist
iNaturalist was searched on 19 February 2020 for additions to the plant list.
Total Checklist
The following numbers are for a previous version of this checklist.
The total checklist contains 200 species, of which four, Dalea sp., Eriogonum trichopes, Loeseliastrum sp. and Calochortus splendens, need further work to verify their determinations. Of the 199 species, 101 were found both in our surveys and in the vouchers. 79 species were found only in our surveys, and 20 species were found only in the vouchers. Many of the species found only in the vouchers were vouchered from areas outside those we surveyed.
Interesting Species The species found here that are found in few other areas of the Borrego Desert (as narrowly defined in the link as roughly the northern half of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park) in our surveys are:
- Scutellaria mexicana = Salazaria mexicana. This is the only area in which this taxon has been recorded. This species also occurs at one location at about 3000 feet on Yaqui Ridge, about two miles to the south, and at one location in Upper Tubb Canyon, about three miles to the north.
This species is at the southwest portion of its range here. It is nearly completely absent from San Diego County, yet it is very common on the northern side of the Santa Rosa Mountains. There may be a single other population in San Diego County, at Mountain Springs, but no one has ever seen it there since the last voucher in 1917. There are a number of other species supposedly from Mountain Springs that have never been seen there since they were vouchered at about the same time as the Salazaria, so one suspects that 100 years ago that name might have referred to a different location.
- Senna armata. This species is abundant along the access road to Glorietta Canyon, although only three nearby individuals were in our Glorietta / Juanito Canyon survey area. We found a large population of at least 70 individuals in our survey in Yaqui Meadows of the Salazaria Canyon Wash area. This is the only location where we have seen this species in the Borrego Desert.
The population here is the northernmost extent of the main population in this area, which extends to the south along SR78 from The Narrows to Mine Wash.
There is another population in the Canebrake / Indian Canyon area.
The closest population to the north is on the northern side of the Santa Rosa Mountains, and to the east in the Chocolate Mountains.
It is completely unclear to us why this species isn't found in other parts of the Borrego Desert.
- Eremothera chamaenerioides = Camissonia chamaenerioides. This species has been recorded in only two other surveys. It is a fairly widespread species, but usually only occurs as a few individuals in any location. There are only seven voucher locations in San Diego County, six to the south of the Borrego Desert, and one in the extreme northeast corner of the county, with neighboring vouchers from Imperial County.
To put these in perspective, the median number of occurrences in all of our surveys is 24 for the plants in this Checklist. Creosote, Larrea tridentata, has been recorded on 66 of our Borrego Desert surveys, and is the most frequently-occurring species on those surveys.
These Canyons are also notable for their large populations of:
- Lyrocarpa coulteri, Coulter's lyrepod, found nearly everywhere along the trail. We saw a minimum of 40-50 plants, and probably many more. We've never seen more than a handful of plants in other areas, and those plants were almost always straggling through another plant. Here many of the plants were out in the open as bushes!
- Crossosoma bigelovii, rock crossosoma, found most abundantly in upper Juanito Canyon. It was in perhaps five distinct locations there, with a minimum of 30 plants. We've never seen such large blooms on it in other places; some of the flowers were 30 mm across. We were especially happy to see a number of young plants of this species. There are also a few scattered individuals in the canyons south of Yaqui Meadows.
- Mentzelia involucrata, bracted blazing star, found in many different locations all along our route, with at least 50 plants total seen. This is much more abundant here than we've seen elsewhere.
Two other species were in much greater abundance than elsewhere in the Borrego Desert: wing-nut cryptantha, Cryptantha pterocarya, had at least 100 plants total in many more than 9 locations, and Eucrypta chrysanthemifolia var. bipinnatifida, eucrypta, had at least 40 plants in 5 locations. Glorietta Wash also has about twenty plants of scarlet spiderling, Boerhavia coccinea.
Best of all, these canyons are largely free of the scourge of the non-native Brassica tournefortii, Asian mustard. Although we did find about 100 plants in total in our surveys, this is far from the tens of thousands in some areas. We pulled out a number of plants, and we saw evidence that others have done so as well. If you see it, and can confidently identify it, please remove as many plants as you can.
The only time we saw Chenopodium murale was on 27 November 2013 after the monsoonal rains, and we removed all ~60 plants we saw.
Interesting Monsoonal Flood Event The summer of 2013 was an active monsoon season in this area. A thunderstorm in the drainage of the canyon immediately southeast of Glorietta Wash caused a flash flood that completely reworked its wash, including the area of Glorietta Wash below its junction with this drainage. The flash flood destroyed all evidence of the road that went through the wash. It largely wiped the wide wash clean of vegetation, depositing sand in some areas and eroding sand in others, creating banks several feet high in places, including one along the Glorietta Canyon access road.
As of 27 November 2013, the road has been recreated in approximately its old location by 4 WD vehicles, and is in good enough shape that we saw a minivan make it to the parking area. However, that minivan got stuck in the soft sand of the road when it ventured a bit out of the beaten-down tracks, and had to be pulled out.
Before the 2013 flash flood, the road was a clearly defined road within a broad vegetated wash that hadn't been disturbed for some time. Most visitors probably didn't even realize they were driving up a portion of a broad wash. Now that the broad wash has been wiped clean of vegetation in many places, it is much more apparent now that one is driving up a broad wash.
Pictures of the parking area at the entrance to Glorietta Canyon, a few tenths of a mile short of the end of the access road, taken on 27 January 2013 by Mike Crouse are compared to pictures taken on 27 November 2013 and 1 December 2013 by Tom Chester, are linked in Table 1, with corresponding boulders and features marked with numbers in the last two sets, and changes between pictures labeled.
Table 1. Comparison pictures taken before and after the flash flood from the parking area at the entrance to Glorietta Canyon
Location Mike Crouse Tom Chester View looking east 27 January 2013 27 November 2013 View looking southeast 27 January 2013 1 December 2013 View looking west 27 January 2013 1 December 2013 On 27 November 2013, we were stunned to find that this flash flood had brought a small number of higher-elevation species down to elevations where we had never seen them before! We observed Chamaesyce albomarginata and C. melanadenia thriving and blooming on the edges of Glorietta Wash where the first canyon to the southeast of Glorietta Wash joined it. These species had not been seen here in any of the ten previous surveys.
In this location, the plants were all either at the edge of the wash, or on benches above the wash that apparently had slower water moving on top of them.
The lowest elevation we have recorded C. melanadenia in this area is 2200 feet in Plum Canyon, and for C. albomarginata, 2275 feet above Sentenac Cienega toward uppermost Plum Vanyon. The lowest elevation of C. melanadenia on the California Riding and Hiking Trail in Hellhole Canyon is about 2000 feet. The elevation where we saw the plants on 27 November 2013 is about 1250 feet, about 1000 feet lower than the usual low elevation for these species.
It is also interesting to know that all the plants of these two species here germinated this summer, so we know how old they are.
In addition, we observed young plants of Datura wrightii, Sphaeralcea ambigua and Acmispon argophyllus for the first time at the same location.
It will be interesting to see if these plants, all perennials, will survive the summer here.
Checklist for Glorietta / Juanito Canyons See:
- Notes on the Scientific Names Used At This Site and
- Information about the order in which the species are presented, and the links from the Scientific Name and Common Name.
The family name is abbreviated to the first five characters in order to save space in the table rows.
An asterisk before the Common Name indicates a non-native taxon.
Some links go to special pages with more information on those species.
The column with label BW links to the photo gallery page for each species at Fred Melgert and Carla Hoegen's BorregoWildflowers site.
The last two columns gives a rough estimate of the minimum number of plants that we saw, with a maximum value of 99 plants, for two areas:
- GC is the Glorietta Canyon area, including Glorietta Wash and the portion of Yaqui Meadows to the south and east of the Glorietta Canyon parking area.
- SC is what we call the Salazaria Canyon area, the major drainage to the east of the Glorietta Canyon that goes up to the flattish area on Yaqui Ridge at about 3000 feet elevation.
The main intent of this column is to indicate the species for which we found very few plants. If the column contains V, it is a species which is vouchered, but that we have not seen. If the column contains iN, it is a species from iNaturalist that we have not seen and has not been vouchered.
The Yaqui Pass area, formerly part of the flora given on this page, now has its separate flora.
See also Fred Melgert and Carla Hoegen's Glorietta Canyon area plant list.
Version for printing, without lines and other text on this page: html (5 pages) or pdf Clickbook booklet (2 double-sided pages). (See printing instructions for an explanation of these options)
We thank Shaun Hawke for help with part of the 15 March 2009 survey, Karin Vickars for help with the 27 January 2013 Matelea hunt, Julia Lynam for help with the 11 February 2013 Matelea hunt. We thank Bill Sullivan for comments that improved the presentation on this page, as well as some color tweaks to the photographs at the top of the page.
Voucher data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria (ucjeps.berkeley.edu/consortium/)
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Copyright © 2011-2020 by Tom Chester (12), Walt Fidler (5), Kate Harper (4.3), Adrienne Balley (4), Mike Crouse (3), Lance Holmberg (3), Nancy Accola (2), James Dillane (2), RT Hawke (2), Don Rideout (2), Kate Shapiro (1), Keir Morse (1), Angelique Herman (1), Jim Roberts (1), and Steve and Gaylee Rogers (1). Authors listed in order of the number of surveys in which they participated, given in the parentheses after each author.
Permission is freely granted to reproduce any or all of this page as long as credit is given to us at this source:
http://tchester.org/sd/plants/floras/glorietta_canyon.html
Comments and feedback: Tom Chester
Last update: 25 February 2020