VOA慢速英语--约书亚树国家公园：沙漠的多样性

Desert Diversity at Joshua Tree National Park 约书亚树国家公园：沙漠的多样性

This week on our national parks journey, we explore a unique place where two deserts meet. The hot, harsh, rocky landscape is home to a rare and strange-looking tree. In fact, the park gets its name from this iconic plant.

Welcome to Joshua Tree National Park, in southeastern California.

The limbs of Joshua Trees stretch and twist upward in all directions. At the end of each limb are sharply pointed¹ green leaves. The plant looks like a large cactus², and can grow over 12 meters tall.

But, as the National Park Service explains, Joshua Trees are not really even trees. They are succulents that belong to the yucca family. Succulents are desert plants can hold a lot of water inside them.

Joshua Trees are not exactly beautiful. An early explorer to the area once described them as “the most repulsive³ tree in the vegetable kingdom.”

But park visitors are amazed by the wild-looking forests of Joshua trees.

The Mormon religious group is said to have given the plant its name. Mormon settlers reportedly thought it looked like the Christian⁴ holy figure Joshua, his arms held out, guiding travelers to the promised land.

Joshua trees thrive in the climate of the Mojave, one of two deserts within the park. The Mojave is a high desert. It is 900 meters above sea level. It is also relatively⁵ cool and wet.

The Mojave Desert meets up here with the Colorado Desert. The Colorado is a lower desert. It makes up the eastern part of the national park.

Much of the park sits within the “overlap⁶” of the two deserts. The overlap creates a diverse ecosystem⁷, where many plants and animals thrive.

Within the park you can find bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, iguanas⁸ and black-tailed jackrabbits.

The park is also home to 250 kinds of birds, like the red-tailed hawk⁹, the roadrunner and the Scott’s oriole.

After spring rainstorms, desert wildflowers burst to life in colorful display. The blooms on Joshua trees are bright white. Cacti¹⁰ produce bright purple, red and orange wildflowers.

The blooms last just a few weeks before the hot summer heat becomes too strong.

Along with Joshua trees, large piles of rocks are another defining part of the park’s landscape. The huge boulders¹² sit stacked on top of each other. Roads and hiking trails lead visitors through paths of these boulders.

Joshua Tree National Park is over 320,000 hectares. It has many hiking and walking trails -- from long hikes that take all day to finish, to short ones, like the Hidden Valley trail. This trail takes you through an area that was once a place for cattle-stealing cowboys to hide out. The area’s massive rock piles made for effective places to hide in the desert.

These huge boulder¹¹ piles and rock walls have made Joshua Tree National Park world-famous for rock climbing and bouldering. The park has more than 8,000 climbing routes.

John Hochhausler often comes to Joshua Tree to rock climb and enjoy nature. He makes the three-hour drive from Los Angeles, where he is a lawyer.

“When you see the park from down low, it’s beautiful, but when you see the park from 150, 200 feet up, it’s amazing."

Rinat Erlich visited the national park with Hochhausler. She is also a lawyer in Los Angeles. She had just tried rock climbing at Joshua Tree for the first time.

"We love it. We come here to walk on trails, last time we were here we rode Jeeps, which was so much fun. And, it's just a great place, a great outdoorsy place with a lot of character."

1 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

2 cactus   

n.仙人掌

参考例句：

• It was the first year that the cactus had produced flowers.这是这棵仙人掌第一年开花。
• The giant cactus is the vegetable skycraper.高大的仙人掌是植物界巨人。

3 repulsive   

adj.排斥的，使人反感的

参考例句：

• She found the idea deeply repulsive.她发现这个想法很恶心。
• The repulsive force within the nucleus is enormous.核子内部的斥力是巨大的。

4 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

5 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

6 overlap   

v.重叠，与…交叠；n.重叠

参考例句：

• The overlap between the jacket and the trousers is not good.夹克和裤子重叠的部分不好看。
• Tiles overlap each other.屋瓦相互叠盖。

7 ecosystem   

n.生态系统

参考例句：

• This destroyed the ecosystem of the island.这样破坏了岛上的生态系统。
• We all have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem.维持生态系统的完整是我们共同的利益。

8 iguanas   

n. 美洲蜥蜴 名词iguana的复数形式

参考例句：

• Galapagos land iguanas belong to the genus Conolophus, of which there are currently three recognised species. 加拉帕戈斯陆栖鬣蜥属于鬣蜥属，其中目前得到确认的有三个物种。
• Feral cats in the region could be eating eggs and young iguanas, Gentile speculates. 这一区域的野猫可能正在吃鬣蜥蛋及其幼崽，金泰尔猜测。

9 hawk   

n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员

参考例句：

• The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it.鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
• The hawk snatched the chicken and flew away.老鹰叼了小鸡就飞走了。

10 cacti   

n.（复）仙人掌

参考例句：

• There we could see nothing but cacti.那里除了仙人掌我们什么也看不到。
• Cacti can survive the lack of rainfall in the desert.仙人掌在降水稀少的沙漠中也能生存下去。

11 boulder   

n.巨砾；卵石，圆石

参考例句：

• We all heaved together and removed the boulder.大家一齐用劲，把大石头搬开了。
• He stepped clear of the boulder.他从大石头后面走了出来。

12 boulders   

n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾

参考例句：

• Seals basked on boulders in a flat calm. 海面风平浪静，海豹在巨石上晒太阳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The river takes a headlong plunge into a maelstrom of rocks and boulders. 河水急流而下，入一个漂砾的漩涡中。 来自《简明英汉词典》