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In that fragile period, it likely would have been sheltered by a “nurse tree ” — typically a paloverde, ironwood or mesquite — that protected it from animals and harsh weather.

Keeping company with the ironwood trees are mesquite, paloverde, creosote and saguaro.

Even in this relatively lush desert there is only so much to occupy the gaze – limestone outcrops, prickly pear, paloverde, mesquite; the sky and its carnivorous birds – before that gaze turns inwards.

The moment we entered, Schmidt’s wife, Li, presented us with a pudgy, furry, gray-yellow Centris pallida — a desert bee that specializes in pollinating the paloverde plant — that she found lying on her windshield that morning.

At its center stands a grand Stonehenge-like grouping of basalt columns and paloverde trees.