Bloom Reports from the Anza-Borrego Desert: 2025-2026
Table of Contents
Latest Summary of Bloom Status
Bloom Reports from Individual Hikes This Season
Links to Other Webpages on Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Blooms
Background Information for Bloom Reports from the Anza-Borrego Desert
Older Bloom Reports from 2009 to present
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| Fig. 1. Left: Mammillaria tetrancistra (=Cochemiea t.), common fishhook cactus, photographed by Jim Roberts on 1 September 2025 in the Agua Caliente County Park area.
Right: A fully leafed-out ocotillo, Fouqieria splendens, photographed by Tom Chester on 1 September 2025 in the Agua Caliente County Park area. Click on the pix to go to the iNat obs of each. | |
Latest Summary of Bloom Status
Summary as of 7 September 2025
The monsoon season finally began on 25 August 2025, when two areas received good enough rainfall to green up the ocotillos and germinate our monsoonal annuals:
- the area along highway S2 received about an inch of rain over a stretch of about ten miles, from Campbell Grade / Vallecito Valley to just north of Indian / Torote Canyons. Tom Chester, Don Rideout and Jim Roberts surveyed the length of S2 on 1 September 2025, finding nearly every ocotillo fully leafed out along that ten mile stretch.
- the area between Ocotillo Wells and the Fish Creek Mountains also received an inch of rain, with one small spot just southeast of Ocotillo Wells receiving an estimated 3.1 inches of rain from weather radar estimates.
Rain fell farther to the east as well, closing Highway 86 in Imperial County near its junction with SR78 for a day or so after vehicles were swept off the highway due to flash flooding.
Don Rideout, Tom Chester, and Jim Roberts posted 89 obs of 24 species from our 1 September car survey trip, including observations of germinated monsoonal annuals, and resprouting monsoonal perennials.
See Monsoonal Species for a list of the species that respond significantly to monsoonal rainfall.
Monsoonal annuals grow quickly, and normally would be expected to begin blooming four to six weeks after the rainfall, which would be the last part of September and the first part of October 2025.
Additional monsoonal rain has fallen since 25 August 2025, including almost an inch in the Borrego Springs area, measured in a gauge near the Roadrunner Mobile Park. More rain may have fallen in the area east of there where there are no rain gauges.
Tom Chester and Don Rideout plan to explore that area on 10 September 2025 to see if the ocotillos in that area have greened up and whether any germination has occurred.
See also previous versions of this page.
Bloom Reports from Individual Hikes This Season
The latest bloom reports are given first (i.e., the reports are in inverse order of time). As detailed immediately above, you can see a map of where the hikes were from any linked iNat post of the species in bloom.
For many more bloom reports, see Anza-Borrego Wildflowers Bloom Report by Fred Melgert and Carla Hoegen.
Bloom Reports not yet added to this page
Links to Other Webpages on Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Blooms
Anza-Borrego Wildflowers Bloom Report by Fred Melgert and Carla Hoegen, often with daily wildflower updates.
All iNaturalist observations in the Borrego Desert since 1 December 2024, 774 observations of 198 species (numbers are as of 20 October 2024 (click on "Filters" to change the dates).
Wildflower Updates from the Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association.
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park official site, with wildflower information on it. When they start producing current wildflower reports, click on the link near the top with the word Update, which might be updated weekly.
DesertUSA Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Wildflower Reports
Anza-Borrego Foundation and Institute Wildflowers and their Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Wildflower Hotline: (760)767-4684. "Information on this recording is updated regularly."
Theodore Payne Wildflower Hotline (Reports begin the first Friday in March)