{"id":3753,"date":"2025-12-02T04:45:46","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T10:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/?p=3753"},"modified":"2025-12-02T04:45:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T10:45:46","slug":"fouquieria-splendens-ocotillo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/fouquieria-splendens-ocotillo\/","title":{"rendered":"Fouquieria splendens, Ocotillo"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Photograph = Fouquieria splendens, Warren Lauzon)<\/sup><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

Fouquieria splendens is found over a large area from southern California to western Texas and throughout parts of northern Mexico. It has a variety of common names, such as coachwhip, candlewood, slimwood, desert coral, and Jacob’s staff, but it is most commonly known as ocotillo.<\/p>\n

The Details<\/h3>\n

The 6-ft to 20-ft tall plant is dormant and leafless over much of the year, clothed in formidable spines. It can seem to be a bundle of viciously spiny dead sticks. But, with a little rainfall, leaves quickly sprout, and the plant may even bloom with hundreds of tubular, red-orange flowers.<\/p>\n

The plants are popular in desert landscapes, and plants have been dug from the wild in many areas of the West. Like many places where cacti and other desert plants have been poached, the scenes may resemble wastelands, and the land is scarred. In the wild, the plants are found around the edges of desert valleys, on rocky hillsides and bajadas, and on mesa tops<\/p>\n

Wikipedia reports that the flowers add a tangy flavor to salads or that they may be dried and used in teas. Similarly, a tincture may be made from the bark.<\/p>\n

Ocotillo grows from sea level in California to 5,000 ft in parts of New Mexico. Presumably, the high-altitude plants of New Mexico would be useful in colder gardens.<\/p>\n

Additional Information:\u00a0Planting a Bare Root Ocotillo<\/a><\/p>\n

Additional Information:\u00a0Fouquieria splendens, Ocotillo<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Ocotillo <\/a>
Ocotillo with mesquite, Hembrillo Canyon, Patrick Alexandeer <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Ocotillo, <\/a>
Ocotillo, Borrego Springs Camp, John Myers <\/div> <\/div>
\"Ocotillo, <\/a>
Ocotillo, Alan Harper <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Fouquieria <\/a>
Fouquieria splendens, Laura Camp <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Ocotillo, <\/a>
Ocotillo, Ric Raider <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Fouquieria <\/a>
Fouquieria splendens, Warren Lauzon <\/div> <\/div>
\"Franklin <\/a>
Franklin Mts State Park, TX, Gier K Edlund <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photograph = Fouquieria splendens, Warren Lauzon) Introduction Fouquieria splendens is found over a large area from southern California to western Texas and throughout parts of northern Mexico. It has a variety of common names, such as coachwhip, candlewood, slimwood, desert coral, and Jacob’s staff, but it is most commonly known as ocotillo. The Details The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-3753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-plants","tag-spines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/fouquieria-splendens-wp-lynn.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5931,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions\/5931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}