Each annual and perennial species has its own preferred blooming season and favored locale. The long-legged Big Bend bluebonnet may start flowering in December and keep on blooming until June. Sometimes this rangy relative of the Texas bluebonnet will bloom in such masses that the lowlands look like they have been painted blue. The daisy-shaped nicollet also likes gravelly soils, while the desert verbena does best in disturbed areas. This lavender-pink sweet william, a spring bloomer in the lowlands, appears later at higher elevations as springtime ascends the mountains. As a rule the spring bloom peaks in the lowlands in April, and species that prefer higher elevations flower a little later. Thus the bracted paintbrush begins to flaunt its red flags in June grasslands, and beautiful, deep blue tube-flowers may be seen from May to July on snapdragon vines in the Chisos woodlands. Usually the luxuriance of the spring bloom will depend on the amount of rain that fell during the preceding fall and winter, and the months of June and July are apt to show few flowers at lower, drier elevations. But with summer rains in August and September, many springtime flowers bloom again, sometimes more spectacularly. These rains also produce a bright first flowering from such summer and fall species as the low-lying, sweet-smelling limoncillo, and the broomweed that gold-plates Basin hillsides right through October and November. Flowers [Illustration: Orange caltrop] [Illustration: Desert baileya] [Illustration: Silverleaf] [Illustration: Thistle] [Illustration: Prickly poppy] [Illustration: Evening primrose] [Illustration: Dayflower] [Illustration: Cardinal flower] Many insects pass the dry months as the seeds do, lying dormant in eggs or cocoons. The same life-giving rains that waken the seeds quicken the insects. And as the flowers come into their own there is a mass emergence of flying, crawling, and creeping creatures. The timing of this double emergence is no accident. While the plant-eating insects feed, they also pollinate the flowers.