cotillo is one of the most characteristic plants of the southwestern deserts. This woody, semi-succulent shrub with sword-like branches growing 2-9 meters long is not easily confused with any other plant. Ocotillo comes alive in the spring when brilliant orange-red flower clusters burst from its branch tips. Following a rainy winter or summer monsoons, ocotillo is particularly impressive with its lush, green foliage densely covering the long, elegant stems. After the rains subside, the gray branches blend in to the surrounding landscape.
You may first mistake this plant for a cactus or a succulent because of its thorny, leafless nature, but it is actually neither. The harsh desert environment compelled ocotillo, cacti and other succulents to evolve similar strategies (shallow roots, reduced leaves, water storage organs) for coping with extreme heat and dryness. Ocotillo does not reside in the Cactus Family because of its fused flower petals, which are more highly evolved than the free petals of cacti. The photosynthetic stems allow it to produce energy without losing precious water from its leaves. Its spreading, spiny branches come into leaf during each rainy period, and the foliage is shed in the intervening dry spells to aid in conserving water. It may actually change its leaves five or six times during some years.
Ocotillo is an important food plant for hummingbirds in need of “fast-food” stopovers on their spring migration through the desert to breeding grounds further north. It is often the only plant blooming in drought years, offering a relatively stable food source. It bears tubular flowers that have probably coevolved to suit the needs of these specific pollinators, such as hummingbirds (Anna’s, black-chinned, broad-billed, broad-tailed, Costa’s, and rufous). During the peak nectar-producing season, carpenter bees transfer pollen effectively while crawling around on the inflorescences as they feed on the flower tubes. Look for ocotillo stripped of leaves from the top down for evidence of the Calleta moth feeding during the summer rainy season. Antelope ground squirrels scurry up onto ocotillo branches and feed on the seeds and flowers.
Ocotillo reveals an interesting correlation of elevation, geology, and soil type. At higher elevations (to 6000 feet) it favors limestone formations, which have high specific heat and are able to retain warmth longer than other rocks. This helps ocotillo persist during the winter season at the high end of its elevational limit, as in Grand Canyon. At lower elevations (to sea level), ocotillo is more limited by water availability than temperature. Here it prefers granite soils, which more readily retain organic matter and moisture.

Where it occurs, native people, pioneers and explorers have used ocotillo for centuries. Tohono O’odham (Papago) people use ocotillo for house construction, while Akimel O’odham (Pima) people beautify their gardens with it. Highly flammable and sensitive to fire, ocotillo bark is full of resin and burns with heavy smoke, making it a supreme firewood. Mexican natives made the thin, dry wands of the ocotillo into torches. Branch cuttings root readily and make living fences, hedges, or enclosures, which also serve as coyote-proof runs and corrals for fowl. Ocotillo is often used along with adobe mud in constructing shelters, houses, and outhouses and as support for thatched roofs of ramadas.
The flowers, soaked in cold water, make a very refreshing and tasty beverage. Others eat the seeds, which reportedly have an alum-like drying quality and make the mouth feel very strange. Herbalists make a tea from the bark to cleanse the lymph system and as a poultice to reduce swelling and inflammation.
According to Rose E. Collom, Grand Canyon National Park’s first botanist, the Apache Indians relieved fatigue by bathing in a decoction of the roots and also applied the powdered roots to painful swellings. Around 1760, German Jesuit Ignaz Pfefferkorn testified that “this contemptible hocotillo is an incomparable remedy in driving away with astonishing speed swellings caused by falls, bumps, or crushing” by peeling some hocotillo twigs, roasting “the remainder for a short time in hot ashes, ... then [pressing] out the juice on a cloth and [binding] the swollen leg with it.”
The genus, Fouquieria, has 13 species and is restricted to the arid regions of North America. It is named for a Parisian professor of medicine, Pierre Éloi Fouquier (1776-1850) and splendens is descriptive of the brilliant, scarlet flowers. First collected in 1847 near Chihuahua, Mexico by Dr. Frederick Adolphus Wislizenus, Dr. George Engelmann later described Fouquieria splendens as distinct from other species in the genus, such as boojum (Fouquieria columnaris). Ocotillo has sixteen common names many of which are derived from Mexican, Spanish, Aztec and other Native American languages.
In Grand Canyon, ocotillo is found on dry mesas and slopes of the Inner Gorge from Colorado River Mile 155 downstream to the Grand Wash Cliffs. As you float on the Colorado River towards Havasu Canyon, look for ocotillo on the Muav benches, first appearing on river left just after you pass the “Polar Bear Rocks,” above Ledges Camp. A stately ocotillo greets hikers at the entrance to Havasu Creek along the trail. Although ocotillo is absent from the Grand Canyon fossil record, the lower Grand Canyon took on its present appearance between 4000 and 2000 years ago, a landscape that included ocotillo. It lives for several centuries as evidenced in comparisons of historical photographs. Elsewhere, ocotillo is found on dry mesas and plains in grasslands and deserts from southwestern California extending east to Texas and south to mainland Mexico and Baja California.

Researched by Richard Quartaroli