desert ephermerals

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The Desert’s Annual Forbs

 

 

By Jay W. Sharp

 

 

 

 

In this article, the eighth in the DesertUSA series on the food chains of the

desert, we focus on the annual forbs, or “ephemeral,†plants – food chain

producers – as a food source for the animals, the consumers. For background,

you may wish to review “The Desert Food Chain, links on the bottom of this

page " .

 

 

The annual forbs – short-lived, non-woody, non-grass plants often called

“ephemerals†– play colorful but cameo roles on the desert stage. Like

temperamental actors and actresses, these plants sometimes withhold their lively

appearances for decades. Collectively, they complicate every year’s botanical

performances because the widely diversified species all have distinctive natural

cues, resource needs, life histories, physical attributes and environmental

responses. A particular species may simply wait in the botanical wings until

its demands for the order of the seasons, the proper length of daily sunlight,

the calibration of daily temperatures, a sufficient amount of rainfall and the

condition of the soil – all in the right combination – have been answered.

You can expect a blooming season to be much like a concert in which you do not

know the musicians, their instruments or the compositions ahead of time. You

only know that, with good luck and good timing, you will experience a masterful

performance.

 

http://www.desertusa.com/mag05/sep/food8.html

 

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can still do

something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the

something that I can do.