UC Botanical Garden—New World Desert Collection

This is the continuation of a three-part post about the University of California Botanical Garden (UCBG) in Berkeley. Part 1 was about the Southern Africa Collection. This post is about the New World Desert Collection.

New World Desert Collection as seen from the hill that makes up the Southern Africa Collection

This is how the UCBG web site describes the New World Desert Collection:

Garden expeditions from the 1920s to the 1960s yielded many of the specimens in this collection, including desert plants from the southwestern United States, Mexico, and as far south as Chile and Argentina. Several beds feature plants from Mexico's Baja California peninsula. This collection is one of the oldest in the Garden.

Deserts receive 25 cm (10 in) or less of rain each year. Many desert plants cannot tolerate our winter rains. Positioning the collection on a southwest-facing slope provides warmth and drainage critical to the survival of these plants.

Plants from desert environments in different parts of the world may have similar structural forms, resulting from a process called convergent evolution. Compare the leaf rosettes of agaves with those of the southern African aloes.

The rosettes in the following photos are great examples of this concept:

Beschorneria albiflora; this is the only beschorneria species I have, but mine is still is a baby (just one rosette)

Hechtia texensis

Dudleya pulverulenta (front), Hechtia sp. (back)

Dudleya pulverulenta

Dudleya pulverulenta; note the powder on the ground that has rubbed off the leaves

Unidentified agave species

Agave guadalajarana

Agave colorata

Agave colorata

 

LEFT: Yucca desmetiana ‘Blue Boy’ with Agave parryi
RIGHT: Unidentified agave with Dasylirion acrotrichum

Agave xylonacantha

Agave parryi var. huachucensis

Agave parryi var. huachucensis

Agave parryi var. huachucensis (left), Agave filifera (right)

Agave parryi var. huachucensis (left), Agave filifera (right)

Agave atrovirens var. atrovirens

Miscellaneous agaves; check out the flower stalk extending from the plant on the right

Agave vilmoriniana; it’s easy to see why its common name is “octopus agave”

Agave vilmoriniana

Agave stricta (left), Yucca schottii (right)

Agave stricta (left), Yucca schottii (right)

Agave stricta aka hedgehog agave

Agave stricta

Agave stricta

Yucca thompsoniana, a very close Yucca rostrata relative (some people say they are different forms of the same species)

Yucca thompsoniana

Dasylirion leiophyllum

Dasylirion leiophyllum (left), Yucca carnerosana (right)

Tour deck overlooking the New World Desert

Tour deck

 

LEFT: Dasylirion wheeleri
RIGHT: Dasylirion quadrangulatum (back), Agave striata (front)

Agave striata

But the New World Desert is about much more than just rosette-forming succulents, as stunning as they are. The large slope seen in the next photo contains a variety of cacti large and small although the selection is nowhere near as comprehensive as it as the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson (read my trip report from July 2012).

View of tour deck from New World Desert

Mammillaria compressa

Ferocactus glaucescens

Opuntia compressa

Very large Opuntia sp.

Very large Opuntia sp.

Very large Opuntia sp.

Very large Opuntia sp.

Very large Opuntia sp.

Opuntia kuehnrichiana

Echinopsis lamprochlora

Puya alpestris and Echinopsis peruviana

If you are a fan of terrestrial bromeliads, you’ll love this wicked puya hedge. Every time I sit on this bench I feel phantom barbs hooking into me from behind :-).

Puya venusta

Puya venusta

In the next photo you’ll see how woody each puya rosette gets. Regular maintenance is needed to prevent this ever expanding clump from intruding onto the walkways.

Puya venusta

Seen in the last two photos in this post, Deuterocohnia brevifolia is a much smaller bromeliad than the puyas above. The “cushions” it forms look deceptively soft from a distance, but up close you realize that they, too, are armed to the teeth.

Deuterocohnia brevifolia

Deuterocohnia brevifolia

After so much spikiness, part 3 of this post will take you to the much less dangerous Asian Collection filled with soft and gentle textures.

Related posts:

► UCBG Southern Africa Collection

► UCBG Asian Collection