Kate O. Sessions Cactus Garden and Palm Canyon, at Balboa Park

In Monday's post I referenced the Balboa Park Club building, and shared a view of it from the side. Here's the front of the building and the plants...

For a minute I thought it looked like the Dasylirion quadrangulatum (guessing?) was gonna bloom, but I think that's just congested new growth.

I wonder if that pachypodium was set free from growing in a container like those I wrote about in my last post?

Behold, the Kate O. Sessions Cactus Garden...

I swear when we visited back in 2014 this was called simply the Old Cactus Garden (as opposed to the Desert Garden which is in an entirely different area), but now it's named after it's original champion: "This historic garden was developed under the direction of Kate Sessions for the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition." (source)

Oh that banksia!

I wish I knew enough about banksia to give you a proper ID, but I do not. An online search said maybe Banksia ashbyi?

It's pretty wonderful whatever it is.

I think it's all sorts of fabulous when a blooming agave can be left in place to gracefully decline. 

There are lil pups hiding under the dying skirt.

Dry, dry, dry...

Somehow this opuntia still managed to bloom and set fruit, even though the pads themselves are shrunk and paper thin.

A healthier speciman.

That patch of agave... *swoon*...

What is it? I don't know. I want to call it Agave filifera, but it seems that name has been taken over by a thin leaved plant.

My bad. I lined up the dried agave bloom spike so it looks like the tree behind it is part of the structure.

Our trip was timed so it seemed most of the aloes in San Diego were blooming while we were there. Sadly I know very little about aloes, other than how to appreciate them.

It would have been rather alarming to be standing there when that large bit of palm blew down.

I wish opuntia grew woody trunks up here in Oregon.

We've walked on now and are heading through the Palm Canyon.

 

I do love Caryota obtusa (fishtail palm), although I learned that Andrew does not. Crazy man!

Washingtonia robusta, aka Mexican fan palm I believe?

Phoenix dactylifera? (date palm)

I'm palm stupid, so my ID's are guesses only.

This was an odd business at the base of one of the Washingtonia robusta (?). It almost seemed like there was another plant growing on it at some point, and part of its root mass was left behind.

Speaking of plants growing on plants, walking out of the canyon I looked down to see this...

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