Baja Fairy Duster

The Baja fairy duster is a shrub native to the Cape region of Baja California. However, it has been introduced to Arizona where I recently found it along the freeway roadside in several places as well as in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The first was found at a rest stop between Buckeye and Quartzite and has fewer flowers so that the underlying shrub is more visible.

A view of the leaves and buds.

The buds then burst forth into flowers.

It grows from 1 to 3 feet tall and spreads out 3 to 4 feet. The next one was photographed in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument along the Puerto Blanco Drive.

It has red flowering balls formed by long pink filaments of 20 or more stamens emerging from small clustered flowers.

When we saw the blooms, they were a wild mixture of pink and red,

nothing like the pictures of the pure red, mature, flower I've seen pictures of. I had never noticed this plant before and the ones we saw were hard not to notice as their red and pink was begging for us to notice them.