Everything Utah, every day.
Help Utahns understand their communities and hold government accountable. Our mission →
Canyon country's largest flower, which opens in the evening, and a poisonous plant.
Sacred datura has large, white, trumpet-shaped flowers, 6 to 9 inches long, that open in the evening and are pollinated by moths. The National Park Service says it produces the largest flower in canyon country.
The Carolina sphinx moth, Manduca sexta, has two roles with this plant: NC State Extension calls the adult its primary pollinator, and the caterpillars feed on its leaves. That is a statement about the species in general, not a record of what visits any flower in Utah.
It is a poisonous, narcotic plant that can kill if eaten. At Arches it grows in desert shrub and pinyon-juniper communities and blooms from May through October.
Look, don't touch or taste.
A broad-leaved native perennial whose clustered flowers support pollinators and whose leaves can host monarch caterpillars.
A drought-tolerant evergreen with scale-covered twigs, fibrous bark, and berry-like cones that feed wildlife.
A broad-crowned river tree whose new generations depend on the right combination of flowing water, exposed sediment, and moisture.