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down to the ground. For the first five years, the seedlings shelter under neighboring shrubs, and put on an impressive (in desert conditions) 4-5 inches of new height each year. Once they are tall and spiky enough to fend off browsers, the trees emerge from the ground cover and begin to reach toward the sky at a more leisurely pace.

Over the centuries, humans have found the Joshua tree to be useful. The Cahuilla tribe of Native Americans used to roast and eat the seeds and flower buds, and wove the fibrous leaves into baskets and sandals. Early ranchers used the trunks for fencing, and miners burned the trees to fuel steam-driven ore stamping machines. Little did they realize that the trees had spent hundreds of years growing to that size, just to be burned up in a day! Today, Joshua trees are primarily used as a tourist attraction. Each year, more than 1 million people visit Joshua Tree National Park, in southern California. The park is a great place for rock climbing, as well as admiring the weird and wonderful plant from which it takes its name.

The 19th century western explorer John Fremont once commented that the Joshua tree was "the most repulsive tree in the vegetable kingdom." Since then, however, we have come to better appreciate the strange and exotic beauty of that most tenacious lily, the Joshua tree.

Sources:

Mojave National Preserve website
http://www.nps.gov/arch ive/moja/mojaanjt.htm

Desert USA
http://www.desertusa.com/jt ree/josh_month.html

Joshua Tree National Park website
http://www.nps.gov/arch ive/jotr/nature/plants/trees/j trees.html
http://www.nps.gov/j otr

Learn more about this author, Kallie Szczepanski.
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