boojum tree

Fouquieria columnaris, or boojum tree, is a tree species in the Fouquieriaceae family, closely related to the ocotillos. It is nearly endemic to the Baja California Peninsula, with a small population in the Sierra Bacha region of Sonora, Mexico. The English name 'boojum' was coined by Godfrey Sykes of the Desert Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, and is derived from a reference in Lewis Carroll's poem 'The Hunting of the Snark'. The species was first described in 1885 and is part of the genus Fouquieria.