Joshua Tree National Monument

Joshua Tree National Park in southern California was established in 1994 by enlarging Joshua Tree National Monument, established in 1936. The approximately 794,000-acre park preserves landscape, vegetation, and wildlife typical of both the low-altitude Mojave Desert and high-altitude Colorado Desert. Geologically, it is part of the Great Basin, a vast region in which parallel mountain ranges, uplifted along deep faults, are separated by sediment-filled basins that are the habitat of Joshua trees, ocotillo, and cholla cactus. The species of treelike yucca for which the park is named grows to heights of 40 feet there and blossoms from March through May.