If there is one tree that signifies the special quality of
Baja, it is the Boojum, scientifically known as Fouquieria columnaris.
Those who've travelled south of El Rosario towards Catavina in the
Central Desert have seen it covering the hillsides for 100 square miles.
There's nothing like it on the planet and it looks like something that
dropped in from another planet.
An ordinary tree will have a wide trunk and long branches, and appear
triangular. But not the Boojum. It's stock is slender, round and often
reaches a good fifty feet into the empty sky.
Along the trunk are what can only be described as pencil sticks jutting
out straight and rigid. At the top of the tree it begins to taper inward
where it sprout branches that flower at the tips. Some of the Boojums
bend over backwards and actually touch the ground with their tops.
Nothing you've ever seen or will ever see will resemble this desert
oddity, unique only to Baja.
August 12, 2008