Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey: Recent Episodes
Petey Mesquitey
Petey Mesquitey is KXCI’s resident storyteller. Every week since the spring of 1992 Petey has delighted KXCI listeners with slide shows and poems, stories and songs about flora, fauna, and family and the glory of living in southern Arizona.
How fortuitous to come across Gregg’s mistflower out in the desert scrub during the Fall Festival of Blooming Asteraceae! What a beautiful plant. Oh, and by the way, this mist flower’s botanical name used to be Eupatorium greggii. That was fun, because I could jabber about Mithradates VI Eupator, the king of Pontus in northern Anatolia, not to mention the botanist, explorer and plant collector Josiah Gregg. Luckily for you I ran out of time. The photos are mine.
I had a chance to use the word didymus when describing the seed pods of Menodora, but forgot, so here: the common name twinberry for Menodora scabra refers to the didymus seed capules, side by side small globes…twins. The short trail that I walked is actually a city park. If you walked nonstop from end to end it would take maybe ten minutes. Several years ago I walked that little city park trail with some friends and fellow flora/fauna geeks. I think it took us over two hours while we identified and jabbered about the plants and pollinators we saw.…
Squash bees are out so early in the morning that they’re moving pollen around well before honey bees even arrive. Research done by the Department of Agriculture found that squash bees “are largely responsible for the production of cultivated squash across North America” and “much of the Americas.” That is very cool. I like buffalo gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima) and I haven’t talked about it in many years. If you were to look it up you’d find that there has been a lot of research on seed of the gourd, but also of the large tuberous root. And, this is cool;…
Arizona white oak is Quercus arizonica. I’ve come across some magnificent ones over the years of living near them in southeastern Arizona. We also have some home grown white oaks planted around our home and they have some stories too. The photos are mine. I figured you like to see a little bit of my clutter, so there you go. That’s Ms. Mesquitey’s hand on the bark of the huge white oak and some leaves and developing acorns on an Arizona white oak.
A sentimental episode written and recorded amidst the cluttered space that I call books and bones. Thank goodness for a milkweed plant to help me snap out of it! Asclepias involucrata has a wide range in the southwestern US and into Mexico. I don’t remember ever seeing it offered in a nursery , but then I don’t remember a lot of stuff. But hey, it is a perennial with a woody tap root, so I’m thinking It would be a fun addition to a wildflower pollinator garden. Queen butterflies and their following caterpillars certainly thought it was a nice addition…
I first learned this snake as the western hog-nosed snake (Heterodon nasicus). It’s now called the Mexican hog-nosed snake (H. kennerlyi). And, this is neat, at least for me; a snake of my Kentucky youth was the eastern hog-nosed snake (Heterodon platirhinos). It has all the same crazy wonderful behavior as our borderlands species. Back in those olden days I remember folks called it puff adder or puffing adder, among other colloquial names based on its defensive behavior. Now you know. The photos are mine. Those are Marian’s hands and our dog Badger’s nose.
I’m pretty sure I first encountered the plant called mala mujer in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson around 30 years ago. I had 10 years of commercial horticulture under my belt and I had become a native plant geek. “To heck with all these exotics,” I’d shout to people, “Grow native!” Yes, an obnoxious native plant geek. Anyway, I’m also pretty sure I turned that encounter into a Growing Native episode and I mispronounced the genus Cnidoscolus. “The C is silent,” my botanist/horticulturist friend Gene Joeseph gently told me. Where would I be without friends like that? There…
Hmmm, a rambling reminiscence about amphibians and reptiles and of course to be continued, ‘cause here comes monsoon! The Sonoran Desert Toad, formerly the Colorado River Toad, is Incillius alvarius….formerly Bufo alvarius. As near as anyone can figure Incillius means ditch or trench and alvarius may refer to its large abdomen. A fun common name could be the Tubby Tummied Ditch Toad, but yeah, the Sonoran Desert Toad is an excellent name. And, a duded up Sonoran Desert Toad was the logo for the Tucson band The Dusty Chaps. The photos are mine.
I was looking through photos that I’ve taken of this plant over the years and realized I even have 35 mm slides of Jatropha macrorhiza. Slide show! So yeah, this is a favorite plant. And, I love this description from the web site SEINet: Jatropha macrorhiza “is a charismatic plant you won’t forget once you recognize it. The large, palmately lobed, bristle-toothed leaves coming out of an erect stem with pink flowers really stands out.” Yup! The photos are mine of the newly emerging plants on the rocky hillside described in this episode.
I’ve told the story of the yucca moths and the soaptree yuccas many times. I love to tell it when I give talks and I’m not making this up; years ago on a special International Women’s Day at KXCI, my wife, yes, Ms. Mesquitey, told the yucca moth story on Growing Native. We both think it is one of the most amazing things that happen around us and part of an extremely long and always lengthening list of crazy wonderful happenings in the natural world. The photos are mine and taken here at home. I was pulling back the petals…
It was Linnaeus that created the name Mimosa from the Greek: mimos for mime and the suffix osa for resembling. And as to the plant jabbered about, it was Asa Gray that named the species grahamii to honor James Graham probably at William Emory’s suggestion…fellow soldier surveyors in the field. The photos are mine.
The streams and pools of the Swisshelm, Chiricahua, Mule, Pedregosa, Perilla and Peloncillo mountains are part of the Rio Yaqui Drainage. Those water courses drain toward Sonora and the Rio Yaqui and they have or used to have the same eight species of fish that are found in that river. The Mexican stoneroller is one of those eight species and I owe that fish big time for helping cure the blues. So yay, for cool native fish found in the borderlands of southeastern Arizona! The photos are mine.
I love desert ironwood trees….love peering under them to see the plants they’re nursing …love the purple and white flowers and seed pods that follow… never minded the spiny branches tugging at my clothing and sometimes drawing blood… and, love the desert litter beneath them. The desert ironwood is a beautiful tree…yeah, it is! The photos are mine
The first time I identified crimson sage (Salvia henryi) was years ago just outside Paradise in the Chiricahua Mountains. Marian and I were checking out a native mulberry when we saw the bright red flowers on the same hillside. That’s pretty cool, because I learned later that John and Sara Lemmon collected it in the Chiricahuas in 1882. The Lemmons sent their plant collections back east to Asa Gray for identification and naming. It was Gray who named the species henryi after the botanist Augustine Henry who collected and botanized in China. Jeez, talk about an argument for species names…
False Solomon’s seal was formerly in the family Liliaceae, but is now in Asparagaceae. There are 2 subspecies of Maianthemum racemosum. The subspecies out here in the mountainous forests of the western U.S. is amplexicaule, so it reads like this: Maianthemum racemosum subsp. amplexicaule. Between the 2 subspecies false Soloman’s seal can be found all over North America…all over…and into a bit of northern Mexico. So wherever you are, search the rich damp soil of the mountain forest under story. Doesn’t “rich damp soil” sound glorious? It almost makes me want to create a forest garden with that kind of…
Asclepias asperula is found beyond the borderlands around the Southwestern United States and into Northern Mexico. My explanation of the common name antelope horns being the result of drug use wasn’t fair. At one point the species name for this milkweed was capricornu from Latin meaning goat horn. And here is a good quote from I forget who (drug use), “the common name Antelope Horns is reflective of the maturing seed pods which begin to curve as they grow and soon resemble antelope horns.”Okay, sooo, antelope horns or immortàl, your choice, but always Asclepias asperula. Whenever we see this milkweed…
I love following the drainages out of the mountains and across the deserts, observing all the plants and animals that follow them as well. Do I always tell you that? Having wild turkeys come out of the nearby mountains and wander by our little homestead reminded me to talk about the magic of canyons and arroyos that cross our deserts. The reintroduction of the Gould’s turkey into the mountain ranges of southeastern Arizona began in the early 1980s and continued through the 1990s. There were blunders and successes. Now a days we can’t go into the mountains without seeing turkeys.…
When the Mesquitey family lived near Tucson I worked in a crazy wonderful nursery that was at the base of A-Mountain (Sentinel Peak) right next to the Santa Cruz River. It was there that I fell in love with the native Fremont Wolfberry, so much so that we propagated it at the nursery and I ended up writing song called When the Wolfberries Bloom on A Mountain. Sad, but true. Anyway, near our home in Cochise County, Arizona we find two species of wolfberry; Lycium berlandieri and L. pallidum (this episode). And here is good news… we need all we…
I hope you’re getting a chance to do some wandering this spring…maybe your backyard or a nearby park or even out in the wild. I owe you an episode about pale wolfberry (Lycium pallidum) and I’ll do that, but this bright little annual that looks so much like a dandelion is abundant around out little homestead this April. I like the common name Fendler’s desert dandelion and of course I like the botanical name Malacothrix fendleri. The photos are mine and taken very near our home. The underside of the flower helps identify it from other dandelion-like flowers you may…
Seems every few years I revisit this old poem/song of mine. It’s a true story. Oh, and the band I was in back in those Tucson days was The Dusty Chaps. The photos are mine of some of the desert that blew my mind back then and still does.
It is the ground dried fruit of Rhus coriaria that’s used in cooking throughout the Middle East. The fruit of our southwestern species of sumac is almost always used as a refreshing tart drink and you come across local names like Apache kool-aid, sumac-aid or Rhusade. And, it has been used that way by indigenous folks for centuries. Reem Kassis is the author/chef I was reading about in The New Yorker. She is the author of the cookbooks The Palestinian Table, The Arabesque Table and the children’s book We are Palestinian, A Celebration of Culture and Tradition. The photos are…
Penstemons are in the Figwort Family, Scrophulariaceae. There are about 250 species and the majority of them, 99.9999%…okay I dunno, but there is only one other species somewhere in Eastern Asia… are found in North America and most of those are in the western United States. Lucky us and yay! Oh, and here is a fun factoid: It was botanist David Mitchell in colonial Virginia who suggested the name Penstemon to a plant he was working with, but he didn’t explain the name. Other botanists thought Mitchell was referring to the five stamen of the flowers using the Greek pente…
We love finding grinding holes in rocks when out traipsing in the wild. One of our favorite destinations when we lived in Tucson was the Coyote Mountains west of town. There was spot in one of the canyons where we found grinding holes and it became a family and friends gathering place. “Let’s meet at grinding hole rock.” You can find grinding holes in rocks all over southern Arizona and they are such a wonderful reminder of the people that lived here centuries before you and me. I love to stand by them taking in the view and imagining the…
I was mistaken about Arivaca’s vulture celebration. It is not early March, but later in the month. Apologies to them, but hey, the good news is that you can celebrate turkey vultures all of March. Yay! We’ll have some small flora and fauna spring celebrations at our home. Your home too? Hey, check your very local listings for flora and fauna spring celebrations! Cool posters below for both Bisbee and Arivaca celebrations.
I have so many memories of hikes or journeys in southern Arizona that include walnut trees…sometimes up high in the mountains or as I mentioned in this episode, a riparian canyon cutting into the Sonoran Desert. They’re part of the flora and fauna that make the borderlands so diverse, beautiful and occupied, not vacant. The photos are mine and taken at our home.
The etymology of the word mistletoe is all over the place and has been traced to Old English, Middle English, Anglo Saxon and old German…a mix of all of the above. I do like the meaning “dung on a twig.” And listen, mistletoe is really an excellent plant for birds, so why don’t native plant nurseries offer Phoradedron californicum for your ironwood or mesquite or catclaw? Ask your favorite nursery person for dung on a twig! The photos are mine. Look at those berries!
When I used to give talks I would always show photos and talk about our regional yucca species; Yucca elata, Y. baccata and Yucca madrensis… Yucca madrensis, by the way is the former Yucca schottii, but here’s what’s cool about this resident of the Madrean Evergreen Woodlands; it’s pollinated by a different moth species than Y. baccata or Y. elata. They each have their own yucca moth species doing the pollinating. Cool? Very! Well there’s some more to know about this yucca, soo, you could pull a book or two off the shelf or you can grill your favorite nursery person with…
I read in HORTUS THIRD that there are about 150 species of Vaccinium found in “cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere,” 40 of which are found in North America. In this episode I rattle off some of the common names I came across, but think of all the hundreds of names indigenous peoples must have given to these shrubs. Pretty cool. I love the common name whortleberry and there are other Vaccinium species called whortleberry. Lingonberry is red whortleberry or bilberry is bog whortleberry and the list goes on. It’s all wonderfully confusing. If my hunt and gather for…
Anyone who lives in groundhog country will have a woodchuck tale or two to tell. Growing up in Kentucky I sure did. The first piece I wrote for a poetry class I took at the University of Arizona in 1969 was about groundhogs. I’ll spare you. Oh, and my friend Russell Lowes shot me a note regarding marmots in Arizona. A few years ago while backpacking in the Kachina Wilderness near Flagstaff he and fellow hikers saw yellow bellied marmots. That’s pretty darn cool! So, I’m corrected and excited about marmots in Arizona. Thank you, Russell. Anemone tuberosa is truly…
This is an episode about hearing my heart beat. I initially was going to talk about the noise made by ORVs, ATVs, SUVs and pickup trucks out in the deserts and hills. I fall in the “pickup truck” category. Don’t want you thinking I’m a holier than thou sorta guy…ha! Anyway, guess I’ll pontificate about all that another time. You’re welcome. So, this is an episode about hearing my heart beat while hanging out on a rocky slope in the Galiuro Mountains. The photos are mine.
Surely I’m not the only person who sits around reading field guides by a warm wood stove. And our field guides do end up in the truck headed out to the borderlands. Hey, Jim Koweek and I met in 1980, hmm, maybe 1981, but yeah, it is an old friendship. And listen, besides Sonoran Desert Plant ID for Everyone, Jim is also the author of Grassland Plant ID for Everyone, except folks that take technical stuff too seriously. Yes, that’s the title and the two books look very good together on a truck seat. Oh, and excellent reading around a…
I grew and sold California buckthorn for several years. Early on I sold it wholesale to other nurseries, but I also sold it at Farmers Markets in Cochise County. I’m a terrible plant promoter I guess and the plant never really got popular, at least in my circles. It’s ironic because in California there are some named cultivars (nativars folks like to say…whatever) sold in nurseries. We’ve had some nice specimens over the years at our little homestead. And birds love the fruit so thanks to them we’ve had some volunteers pop up around the place. The photos are of…
I originally wrote and recorded the song Road Across the Grassland in 2005…well, maybe a little before, but listen, there really is a dirt road that starts about three miles from our home and that road will take you across grassland, through desert scrub and woodland and right to the Mexican border. I love it…I’m guessing you knew that. Thank you so much for listening all these many years and Happy New Year!
If I had wobbled up any higher on that rocky slope I may or may have not fallen by a ragged rock flower. It ranges from 1,800 ft to 4,500 ft in elevation across southern Arizona. I found a wonderful line in the plant description found at the site SEINet; “An unassuming plant with attractive flowers, often growing in out of the way places.” Sweet….also some photos of Crossosoma bigelovii can be found at that site. The photo used here is mine taken of Lucretia Breazeale Hamilton’s drawing in a favorite book of mine called Trees and Shrubs of the…
There are sixty-five to seventy species of Fraxinus found around the world, so of course ancient Romans had a name for ash trees. Carl Linnaeus, the king of binomial nomenclature, used the classical Latin name fraxinus as the genus for ash trees and one hundred years later the American botanist John Torrey gave the species name velutina to the tree I’m jabbering about in this episode, Fraxinus velutina or velvet ash. Seven species of ash are found in Arizona and most if not all can be found in the horticulture trade. That’s awesome, so hey, collect them all! The photos…
What a fun discovery in the desert east of Douglas, Arizona. There is just something about these large spinescent shrubs in the buckthorn family, Rhamnaceae. I love Condalia warnockii and friends who frequent the western deserts of Arizona love Condalia globosa…okay, me too. And now I’m adding Condalia correllii to my favorite spinescent shrub list. And hey, it was a guess, but yes the specific epithet correlli is named for botanist Donovan Stewart Correll. Oh, and as far as my jokingly pondering whether Antonio Condal and Jean Pierre Florens knew of one another… only if either one could time travel.
Leslie Newton Goodding had a busy career. It was when he worked for the U. S. Department of Agriculture that he collected the type specimen for the willow jabbered about in this episode. It was the American botanist Carleton Roy Ball, a Salix specialist (geek), who honored Goodding with the species name. One of the things that caught my attention when reading about Leslie Goodding was that at some point he taught High School in Bisbee, as well as Benson. I bet those teaching gigs supported his plant explorations around southern Arizona. There are a bunch of Salix species in…
All the plants and their communities I was excitedly jabbering about are in the borderlands year round, but the sandhill cranes are only here for the winter months. You can google sandhill cranes and come up with some places to see them out in Cochise County. Here’s a few places where we look for them: the Whitewater Draw is probably the best known and a great spot, but you can also see cranes at the Willcox Playa off Kansas Settlement Road or off Highway 191 north of Dragoon Road near the power plant…there’s a sign saying “Wildlife Viewing.” A spot…
When Ms. Mesquitey and I gather acorns to plant we bag up hundreds, but I can never resist nabbing a few if I see some still on an oak…thus the acorns in my pocket. It would be hard to go into a woodland or forest in southeastern Arizona and not see acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) or Mexican jays (Aphelocoma ultramarina)…they are quite common, but quite wonderful. The photos are mine. The acorn woodpecker riddled trunk is horizontal, because the pine tree had fallen and was laying across the forest floor. Can you believe all the holes?! The jay was curious…
It’s fun to have favorite plants to look for on excursions into the hills. Looking back at photos and my notes, we have been checking on this particular population of Lemmon’s milkweed for a few years. I’m guessing that as long as we’re in the area, we’ll continue to stop by for a visit. And yes, I did grab a couple seed pods (follicles) from a plant. Stay tuned. Botanical names of plants are usually followed by the name of who named it…the author citation. The genus Asclepias is followed by an L. That’s Linnaeus. And if one looked through…
Mariosousa millefolia or Santa Rita Acacia is found in the borderlands of Arizona and Sonora between 3,000 and 5,000 ft. Two different countries share this species and that, of course, is the way it is with all the flora and fauna of the borderlands. Yay! The photo of foliage and the green seed pods is by Sue Carnahan. Thank you! And, the flower pic and the dry pods and seed photos are mine.
This is a repetey that I really like. It’s a reminiscence sparked by some photos taken over 60 years ago. My father took the black and white photos of me and Cricky. I can’t remember him ever being without a camera. Thanks dad, I love these. I only wish you were around so I could tell you. The color photo is mine of our daughters Katy and Sarah in the Gila National Forest where we used to camp in the summer. Kids and nature, right? Thanks to Lucretia for the friendship so many years ago and to Ms. Mesquitey for…
It’s a little bit of a leap from talking about a plant in the aster family to talking about Senna in the pea family. It’s the way my mind was working at the time I guess. Senna species are found around the world. If you were to purchase the herb senna in a store or online it would probably be derived from Senna acutifolia, native to Sudan, Egypt and cultivated in parts of India. Our native sennas are also medicinal, though the strength may vary from species to species. Writing about slenderpod senna (or slimpod senna, but always Senna hirstua…
This episode is a very short list of near life experiences…I spared you, but suspect you have a pretty good…
Squash bees are out so early in the morning that they’re moving pollen from male flowers to female flowers well…
I grew up in the land of the black walnut, Juglans nigra. And if you grew up in the eastern…
In 1881 John and Sara Lemmon were collecting and botanizing in an area called Rucker Canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains.…
I meant to talk more about the leaves of Physocarpus monogynus. They resemble leaves of a currant or a raspberry…I…
This episode of Growing Native is a rambling reminiscence about amphibians and reptiles. With the monsoon starting up here in…
The botanical name for Arizona rosewood is Vauquelinia californica. The species name californica means of California, but it’s not found…
In the borderlands look for Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa) between 3,500 ft. and 7,000 ft. on rocky slopes or out…
June is the season of soaptree yuccas blooming and at our little homestead and all along the borderlands there are…
This was going to be an episode about thread leaf groundsel, (Senecio flaccidus var. flaccidus), a common southwestern shrub and…
Well, a few things: The first time I saw and identified crimson sage (Salvia henryi) was years ago just outside…
Folks love to purchase blooming pentemons in the spring. I mean, who can resist the floriferous panicles of all the…
Mammalogy was one of my favorite courses back in my college days. It was 1968 (early Anthropocene) and there were…
False Solomon’s seal (and a dozen other common names!) was formerly in Liliaceae, but is now in Asparagaceae. There are…
I love following drainages and observing all the plants and animals that follow them too. Do I always tell you…
It’s spring in the borderlands and something florally is going on and it’s going on everywhere. What a hoot! And…
I started my nursery/horticulture career in the spring of 1980 at Desert Trees Nursery northwest of Tucson. It was and…
It’s pretty hard to go wrong no matter which way you head into the borderlands of southeastern Arizona. On the day that we turned west instead of east onto the blacktop near our home and headed towards the Dragoon Mountains the adventure began.The photos are mine of flowering Ceanothus greggii (desert buckbrush) and taken in the Dragoons where biotic communities clash.
Bristlehead (Carphochaete bigelovii) is a small shrub…a subshrub…that I’m not sure I would have recognized without the flowers and bristles. I wonder if I’ve wandered by this species many times before wondering what the heck it was. The flowers and bristles that helped my ID are contained in a very cool looking long involucre and I read that the throats of the flowers are “purplish” and the petals are white which may explain my fumbling over the color of the flowers...maybe.Anyway, a really nice native plant common in the borderlands and especially common if you recognize it.The photos are mine and taken on a windy spring day.
Just a couple things about this episode; the genus Linaria has been assigned to the European or Eurasian species of toadflax and Nuttallanthus is the genus for our North American toadflax…a whopping three species. Oh, and I suspect the common name toadflax is used for other plants as well, but why make things more confusing? Speaking of which, there are two species of toadflax in Arizona, but only one native. The other species is the exotic called butter and eggs or Linaria vulgaris. It sure is a pretty plant, looking like a bright yellow snapdragon, but no it’s a varmint. I yanked some up in the Chiricahua National Monument a few years ago. I was sure some passing tourists were going to turn me in, so I skedaddled before I was caught with an exotic weed.Lemme see, is that more than a couple things? Well, one more; the botanical family Plantaginaceae makes me think of the royal dynasty Plantagenet… a good high school education is a terrible thing to waste.The photos are mine and taken at Toadflax Acres.
Our one flowering wildflower on this wonderful day was the pretty perennial called penny cress or candy tufts. It is the former Thlaspi fendleri, but is now Nocceae fendleri. That’s my photo of the plant and it doesn’t do the plant justice. If you get a chance, you should look it up at the web site SEINet.Alligator bark juniper apparently is an old common name. Now a days it is simply alligator juniper. I’m now up to date, but after seeing all those male juniper plants getting ready to explode with pollen I’m thinking it could be called “pollengator juniper.” (check out my photo below...yikes!) The botanical name is still Juniperus deppeana and alleluia to that.In central Texas and the land of Juniperus ashei folks suffer terribly from the pollen and call their suffering cedar fever. We’ve been in Santa Fe when the Juniperus monosperma were releasing their pollen making much of the populace quite miserable. I don’t remember anyone having a name for their misery, but we heard many nasally profanities during our stay.
Do I talk about dock every late winter and early spring? It sure seems like I do. Well, it's truly the first green plant one sees as winter ends and maybe that’s why I get so excited about it. Green!There are 15 species of Rumex found in Arizona, some of which are introduced exotic species. Rumex hymenospepalus is found all over the state below 6,000 feet and it emerges in late winter and is blooming by early spring.Rumex is the Latin word for docks or sorrels. If you grow sorrel in your herb garden then you have a Rumex species and as near as I can figure the only difference between docks and sorrels is that sorrels are smaller. Hmm, that's not a botanical description.We love finding grinding holes in rocks when out traipsing in the wild. One of our favorite destinations when we lived in Tucson was the Coyote Mountains west of town. There was spot in one of the canyons where we found grinding holes and it became a family and friends gathering place. “Let’s meet at grinding hole rock.”You can find grinding holes in rocks all over southern Arizona and they are such a wonderful reminder of the people that lived here centuries before you and me. I love to stand by them taking in the view and imagining the lives of people who were once there and no doubt taking in the view.The photos are mine of the wild dock and that’s Ms Mesquitey with our dog Burley. I can’t remember the grinding hole count in that boulder covered kitchen…17 or 18? The snake she exclaimed about was a blacktailed rattlesnake skedaddling as they like to do.
Yet another love affair with an Arizona native plant. It could change next week and I’ll be in love with a new native plant. But listen, I got my first legitimate horticulture gig in the spring of 1980 (legitimate as in not pot, but landscape plants) at a wholesale nursery northwest of Tucson. At that wonderful nursery that gave a job to a “desperate for a job” fellow we grew the plant called desert spoon or Dasylirion wheeleri. Fast forward 40 or more years and I was working a few days a week for a large wholesale grower out in Cochise County, AZ where we grew thousands of desert spoons. I think it’s one of the hardest working native plants in southwestern horticulture and landscapes.The genus name Dasylirion is a combination of two Greek words and translates to “a coarse, shaggy or rough (your choice!) lily.” In my excitement while jabbering I said “white” lily…but no just lily. Still a fairly good band name though; The Coarse Lilies. I think the common name desert spoon comes from the fact that the base of a sharp toothy leaf, where it attaches to the trunk, looks like a spoon when dry. Maybe if you’re on drugs, I dunno. I may be making that up too.I mentioned Dasylirion leiophyllum in southwest NM and into west Texas, but neglected to give a shout out to Dasylirion texanum. And oh boy, the species of Dasylirion increase when you head south into Mexico. Yay!The photos are mine and taken in the Dos Cabezas Mountains.
In the early 1990s when this story and song came about I was poking around the West Branch starting at Ajo Road and north almost to Starr Pass where I worked at Desert Survivors Nursery. It actually starts near Irvington Road and it meanders through a lot of private property, so you just can’t go wandering along it like a certain naive plant geek did back then. Yikes, I wish someone had told me!
There are some cool flora and fauna found on the west branch, so it might be fun for you to do a search on line for the West Branch of the Santa Cruz…recommended.
Come on blue dicks and come on spring!
Oh, while figuring out that the genus Dichelostemma translates as “a garland which is twice-parted to the middle,” I also discovered that the name was created by the German botanist Karl Sigismund Kunth. He did the botany of all the plants that the explorers Alexander Von Humbolt and Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland brought back from their 1799 to1804 explorations of Central and South America. That’s 3,600 new species! I also learned that when naming species, Kunth paid “special attention to minute analysis of floral structures.” I’ll say.
The photos are from SEINet and taken by Max Licher. A big thank you to him.
Even as a child I was astounded by the silence of snow. I wonder if there is a name for silent snow? Around our little homestead it’s called, “the snow that helps Petey sleep.”
The plant that helped me sleep one recent winter night is Arizona rosewood. I first saw Arizona rosewoods growing among the oaks around Molino Basin in the Catalina Mountains near Tucson. That was around 1968 or ’69. Yikes!!!
Later in the 1980s when I was working at a wholesale nursery in Tucson we grew and offered rosewoods as an oleander substitute. It still is and here’s the good news; there are are several species of rosewoods available in the horticulture trade. Hmm, I should say, species, subspecies and in the case of pauciflora, variety. Around us in the borderlands of southeastern Arizona we have 2 named rosewoods; Arizona rosewood and let’s call the variety pauciflora Guadalupe Mountain rosewood. Go west to Texas or south into Mexico and you can start adding other rosewoods. Is that cool? Very.
There are some nice rosewood descriptions, photographs and landscape uses in a couple of favorite books found on my book shelf; Cool Plants for Hot Gardens (revised) by Greg Starr and Native Plants for Southwestern Landscapes by Judy Mielke. Judy’s book is still as useful as when it came out 30 years ago and I suspect Greg’s book will be the same in 30 years, but no need to wait.
The photos are mine and taken this winter at our little homestead.
I revealed most of my personal chicken history in this episode. It’s an ongoing saga, though I am much more in control of my crazy love for chickens. I finally recycled all my old hatchery catalogs. Okay that’s not quite true, as I kept one Murray McMurray catalog…just for reference…really. I did love to look at the pictures of the different breeds in those catalogs. Almost always paintings, by the way, and no, I didn’t read them at night under the covers with a flashlight, but oh my gosh, Australorps, Delawares, Wyandottes, Polish, Cornish and Buff Orpingtons! You know what I’m talking about!
If you like chickens too and would like to add a book about the history of chickens to the shelf where you keep your “raising chickens the right way” books and all of your hatchery catalogs, I recommend Why Did the Chicken Cross the World by Andrew Lawler.
The photos are mine.
After I produced this episode we were driving in the desert outside Bisbee, AZ marveling the silhouettes of viscid acacia and I realized I had written and jabbered about the winter silhouettes of deciduous trees and shrubs several times in the past… like every winter for 30 years. Oh well, the outlines of naked branches against our huge borderlands sky are glorious.
The photos are mine and taken of desert willows very near our home.
Oh, my pronunciation of the genus Chilopsis got me thinking; botanical Latin is not the language of the Roman Empire, the Latin that I endured for 2 years in middle school. The Latin that’s used to name organisms has been used in science since the middle ages…I know, science was studied in the middle ages?… Latin was the common language shared, the linqua franca and the organisms’ names were long rambling descriptions in Latin. Then a few hundred years later along comes Carl Linnaeus and the binomial system…2 names, a genus and a species for each organism. Thank you, Carl!
A couple more things; folks tend to pronounce Latinized names in their own language or vernacular. I swear I can tell if someone attended catholic church by the way they pronounce Latinized scientific names…they sound like they’re singing in Italian. And one last thing; there are a bunch of books about all of this. If you’re crazy serious then there is William Stearn’s Botanical Latin. Learn about reformed academic or traditional English pronunciations among other things and good luck to you! But for considerably more fun I recommend The Naming of the Shrew by John Wright. It’s really a fun read.
Now, aren’t you glad I mispronounced Chilopsis?
I remembered that one spring when we were up in Santa Fe visiting family and out on a hike it seemed there was a spotted towhee noisily foraging in every shrub. Noisily! Sometimes you will hear them rustling around before you see them and like all towhees they are busy rascals!
The genus name Pipilo for towhees was created by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816 when he described the eastern species. I’ve found his name associated with a bunch of bird species. He was an early birder…ha, ha.
The 2 legged back hop scratch is little more difficult than some of my other dance moves like the twist or the jitterbug, but I’m getting it. I think I will shorten the name to “the towhee.” I’m already visioning folks circling me and shouting “Do the towheee, Petey. Do the towhee!”
Oh, and the photo is by Laura Hughes. Thank you to her!
Desert anemone (Anemone tuberosa) is in the Buttercup Family. Buttercups are the genus Ranuculus and the family name is Ranunculaceae. It’s probably just me, but that is a marvelous name to write and pronounce. Kearney and Peebles’ Arizona Flora lists three species of Anemone , but the taxonomy has changed (a lot!) and there are now two species listed for Arizona. Desert anemone is one of the first wildflowers to bloom in the spring and to see it you’ll need to head to a rocky slope or canyon sometime in February and that’s where you’ll find it hiding among the rocks. It has a short bloom period, so don’t tarry! Oh, and on our hike in the hills above Fort Bowie National Monument we also saw pointleaf manzanita blooming, ’cause it’s an early bloomer too. Whoa, now you have two good reason to head for the hills!
The featured photo is from the SEINet site and taken by Max Licher. Thank you, Max. The photo with the hand is mine…I tend to stick my hand in flower photos for some scale. By the way, look at those rocks. Limestone!
American robins, Turdus migratorius, are common summer residents in the pine forests of southeastern Arizona. In the winter they move lower to the mixed pine and oak woodland or sometimes much lower, ending up in nearby cities and towns foraging for fruit. Pyracantha plants are a common landscape plant throughout the region and they set an abundance of bright red fruit. Just like fruit on native plants in the wild the pyracantha fruit ferments and yes, birds can get quite inebriated. Party time! Come spring the wandering thrushes remove the lampshades from their heads and return to the pine forests and the sober life. Sorry, but time to build a nest and raise a family.
It was in Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedia Naturalis Historia that the name Turdus was given to the thrush. Several centuries later taxonomist Carl Linnaeus applied it to the genus. I sort of regret not having more fun with the robin’s scientific name, but perhaps one does get wiser with age.
The silhouettes are inside the cover of my old Peterson Guide. Check out number 15…oh yeah.
When we first moved out to Cochise County we were so lucky to have a few springs with abundant Mexican poppy (Eschscholzia mexicana) displays. Distant hills and nearby fields glowed golden with a kazillion blooming poppies. Over the years, dry winters made those floriferous springs less common, but in 2020 there was an incredible wildflower display all around us. I remember standing out in some rolling hills at the base of the Pinaleño Mountains and shouting out plant names…well, at least the ones I could remember… it was that day we saw creamcups (or cream cups, your choice) in the wildflower mix. We even came across some pure stands of Platystemon californicus. Yay!
Oh for goodness sake, I forgot to mention that creamcups’ flowers are white, but the photos show that! Now you know.
Anyway, here’s hoping we get a floriferous spring thanks to winter rain and snow.
The photos are mine.
I could be over thinking the feeling I got when I saw that lone coati from the now named coati mundi bluff, but it was wonderful. The other flora and fauna mentioned in this episode make me feel awfully good. I’ll leave it at that and hope you have plants or critters that make you very happy as well and that 2023 is a year full of wild contentment.
Hmm, I’m missing a kangaroo rat photo, but all the photos are mine. Box turtles visit our back yard all summer and that’s Ms. Mesquitey admiring a Toumey oak.
The botanical name of our 3 needle per fascicle (bundle) Chihuahuan pine is Pinus leiophylla var. chihuahuana. Further south into Mexico where the 5 needle version occurs it becomes Pinus leiophylla var. leiophylla. Some botanists, by the way, list the variety as a subspecies. Well, either way it’s really a neat native pine here in the borderlands.
The photos are mine and taken in the Chiricahua Mountains where we were wandering around looking for a Christmas tree. Below is a photo of large sprout coming off a pine trunk. It was an area that burned during the 2011 Horseshoe Two Fire and some of the surviving fire damaged trees put out large crown-like sprouts. That’s fascinating and unusual for a pine species. And now you know.
I grew and sold California buckthorn for several years. Early on I sold it wholesale to other nurseries, but I also sold it at Farmers Markets in Cochise County. Apparently I’m a terrible plant promoter and the plant never really got popular, at least in my circles. It’s ironic because in California there are some named cultivars (nativars) sold in nurseries. Anyway, you should check with your favorite native plant nursery to see if they grow it.
We’ve had some nice specimens over the years at our little homestead and thanks to birds we’ve had a couple volunteers pop up around the place. The photos are of a volunteer growing next to our barn. I love it! (That’s a sotol stalk in the background.)
And listen, don’t go grinding up the seed of Frangula californica to make a coffee substitute. It would be dreadful and make you feel very bad…guaranteed. There are certainly other medicinal uses and you may also want to look up California buckthorn’s northwest relative Frangula purshiana or cascara sagrada. Now you know.
The photos are mine. I already said that.
Leslie Newton Goodding had a busy career. It was when he worked for the U. S. Department of Agriculture that he collected the type specimen for the willow jabbered about in this episode. It was the American botanist Carleton Roy Ball, a Salix specialist (geek), who honored Goodding with the species name.
One of the things that caught my attention when reading about Leslie Goodding was that at some point he taught High School in Bisbee, as well as Benson. I bet those teaching gigs supported his plant explorations around southern Arizona.
There are a bunch of Salix spp. in Arizona. My Arizona Flora (1960) lists 16 species and I get a kick out of a more current reference that says “nearly 20 species.” So who knows? I do know that Goodding willow is the most common willow in the southwest and found along streams, meadows, ponds, and wet places below 7,500 ft.
The photos are mine of Salix gooddingii by a pond and in glorious fall foliage.
It was the American botanist Soreno Watson, that named the onion collected in Tanner’s Canyon of the Huachuca Mountains to honor Sara Plummer Lemmon. He made no mistake who it honored by using her maiden name, Allium plummerae.
Common names of this borderlands native are Tanner’s Canyon onion, Plummer’s onion or around our place we call it Sara’s onion.
I thought I had some photos of Sara’s onion (Allium plummerae) taken at Onion Saddle in the Chiricahuas, but I couldn’t find them. (Why do I think they are 35 mm slides?) Instead I offer the cover of the book The Forgotten Botanist by Wynne Brown. It’s recommended reading.
After reading the section about the canyon tree frog (Hyla arenicolor) in my old Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians by Robert Stebbins, I had to read it aloud to you. Doesn’t it just make you want to get out and find canyon tree frogs? Stebbins not only wrote the field guide, but did all the illustrations as well. And if your interest is piqued, there is an updated 2018 edition.
Two other valuable field guides for us herpers, expert and otherwise. (I’m the latter)
A Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptile in Arizona, Holycross, Brennan, Babb. This one rides in our truck.
Arizona’s Amphibians and Reptiles, A Natural History and Field Guide, John C, Murphy and others This one I pull off the shelf when I get home.
Kids, collect the whole set!
The photos are mine.
I guess to truly be a fandango I would need a partner and maybe some castanets, but the loose rock fandango can get pretty elaborate with elements of modern dance, hokey pokey, ballet and of course, some jazz hands thrown into the mix. The expression “dance like no one is watching’’ comes to mind and I certainly hope so.
The photos are mine. I thought you’d like to see the fraction of the Galiuro Mountains (Galuros!) I poke around in. Shin daggers are Agave schottii and the photo is of a very small clump. Multiply those by several hundred thousand and you get an idea of what you’re hiking in on many mesas and slopes. Yikes and ouch!
But hey, walking slowly and observing the flora, fauna, geology and distant vistas is the most wonderful thing. Life is beautiful. Yeah, it is.
It’s fun to have favorite plants to look for on excursions into the hills. Looking back at photos and my notes, we have been checking on this particular population of Lemmon’s milkweed for a few years. I’m guessing that as long as we’re in the area, we’ll continue to stop by for a visit. And yes, I did grab a couple seed pods (follicles) from a plant. Stay tuned.
Botanical names of plants are usually followed by the name of who named it…the author citation. The genus Asclepias is followed by an L. That’s Linnaeus. And if one looked through the numerous species names (200 plus), after tuberosa you see the citation L. Someone sent Linnaeus a dry specimen of a North American milkweed and Carl named it. So he is cited for both the genus Asclepias and the species tuberosa. But listen, it was the famous American botanist of the 1800s, Asa Gray that honored the husband wife botanists John and Sara Lemmon with the name lemmonii, for the species jabbered about in this episode, Asclepias lemmonii. Yay!
The photos are mine.
It’s fun to have favorite plants to look for on excursions into the hills. Looking back at photos and my notes, we have been checking on this particular population of Lemmon’s milkweed for a few years. I’m guessing that as long as we’re in the area, we’ll continue to stop by for a visit. And yes, I did grab a couple seed pods (follicles) from a plant. Stay tuned.
Botanical names of plants are usually followed by the name of who named it…the author citation. The genus Asclepias is followed by an L. That’s Linnaeus. And if one looked through the numerous species names (200 plus), after tuberosa you see the citation L. Someone sent Linnaeus a dry specimen of a North American milkweed and Carl named it. So he is cited for both the genus Asclepias and the species tuberosa. But listen, it was the famous American botanist of the 1800s, Asa Gray that honored the husband wife botanists John and Sara Lemmon with the name lemmonii, for the species jabbered about in this episode, Asclepias lemmonii. Yay!
The photos are mine.
What a fun discovery in the desert east of Douglas, Arizona. There is just something about these large spinescent shrubs in the buckthorn family, Rhamnaceae. I love Condalia warnockii and friends who frequent the western deserts of Arizona love Condalia globosa…okay, me too. And now I’m adding Condalia correllii to my favorite spinescent shrub list.
And hey, it was a guess, but yes the specific epithet correlli is named for botanist Donovan Stewart Correll. Oh, and as far as wondering whether Antonio Condal and Jean Pierre Florens knew of one another, (what was that about?) well, only if either one could time travel.
The photos are mine and taken on the day described in this episode. Check out the spines. Ouch!
What a fun discovery in the desert east of Douglas, Arizona. There is just something about these large spinescent shrubs in the buckthorn family, Rhamnaceae. I love Condalia warnockii and friends who frequent the western deserts of Arizona love Condalia globosa…okay, me too. And now I’m adding Condalia correllii to my favorite spinescent shrub list.
And hey, it was a guess, but yes the specific epithet correlli is named for botanist Donovan Stewart Correll. Oh, and as far as wondering whether Antonio Condal and Jean Pierre Florens knew of one another, (what was that about?) well, only if either one could time travel.
The photos are mine and taken on the day described in this episode. Check out the spines. Ouch!
The genus Heuchera is found in the saxifrage family, Saxifracaceae, with 80 other genera that includes the genus Saxifraga and its 400 species. Yikes!
My old (1976) Hortus Third says that there are about 35-50 Heuchera species found in North America and they are largely western. Eight species are found in Arizona and Heuchera sanguinea is found in Arizona, New Mexico and southward, of course.
Ms. Mesquitey and I always find it in rocky shady areas, like the shady side of a mountain or hill sides where it’s also moist. My ancient Kearney and Peebles, Arizona Flora (often referred to simply as “K and P” by plant geeks) says it found from 4,000 to 8,500 feet in elevation. And it blooms through the summer and into October. That’s pretty cool!
The photos are mine. The flowers are beautiful, but check out those basal leaves as well.
The bigtooth maple is no longer in its own family of Aceraceae, but is in Sapindaceae. Molecular taxonomy keeps us plant geeks on our toes.
Across the southwest Acer grandidentatum ranges from 4,000 to 7,000 ft. in elevation. I love the lower elevation maples you find in the canyons that wander down the mountains. Cave Creek Canyon in the Chiricahuas has bigtooth maples and I remember many years ago admiring them in Ramsey Canyon of the Huachuca Mountains. I’m guessing you have a favorite canyon or mountain side to find them as well.
The photo of the maple in its fall glory is by Max Licher and taken from SEINet. Thank you. And below is my photo of scarlet sumac on the rocky slope mentioned in this episode.
The bigtooth maple is no longer in its own family of Aceraceae, but is in Sapindaceae. Molecular taxonomy keeps us plant geeks on our toes.
Across the southwest Acer grandidentatum ranges from 4,000 to 7,000 ft. in elevation. I love the lower elevation maples you find in the canyons that wander down the mountains. Cave Creek Canyon in the Chiricahuas has bigtooth maples and I remember many years ago admiring them in Ramsey Canyon of the Huachuca Mountains. I’m guessing you have a favorite canyon or mountain side to find them as well.
The photo of the maple in its fall glory is by Max Licher and taken from SEINet. Thank you. And below is my photo of scarlet sumac on the rocky slope mentioned in this episode.
My morning ditties are not nearly as amazing as the song of a curved bill thrasher, but they help me begin the day. If I start thinking about the groundwater pumping in the the Sulphur Springs Valley of Cochise County, Arizona, I’ll want to sing dirges, so singing to the flora and fauna around our little homestead is a good thing.
In the foothills and mountains around you and me, white flowering honeysuckle (Lonicera albiflora) can be found from 3,500 ft to 6,000 ft. I find it along streams or very nearby. The plant in our yard, where I sometimes wander by singing, is a large shrub (6’ X 6”), but on occasion in the wild I’ve seen it as a vine and twining up into oaks. Make up your mind Lonicera albiflora!
The photos are mine. The flowers and the fruit are beautiful!
My morning ditties are not nearly as amazing as the song of a curved bill thrasher, but they help me begin the day. If I start thinking about the groundwater pumping in the the Sulphur Springs Valley of Cochise County, Arizona, I’ll want to sing dirges, so singing to the flora and fauna around our little homestead is a good thing.
In the foothills and mountains around you and me, white flowering honeysuckle (Lonicera albiflora) can be found from 3,500 ft to 6,000 ft. I find it along streams or very nearby. The plant in our yard, where I sometimes wander by singing, is a large shrub (6’ X 6”), but on occasion in the wild I’ve seen it as a vine and twining up into oaks. Make up your mind Lonicera albiflora!
The photos are mine. The flowers and the fruit are beautiful!
There are a dozen species of Melampodium and I wonder which one Linnaeus was looking at when he honored Melampus with the genus name. And I wonder when the genus name started being misinterpreted to mean blackfoot and not honoring the mythological soothsayer. The genus translated as blackfoot sure had (and has) a lot of folks scratching their heads about the meaning. “What or where is the blackfoot on this plant?”
But listen, the neat thing I learned about Melampus, besides him being a “legendary soothsayer” was that he was “reputed to understand the speech of all creatures.” My kind of guy. Er…god.
This was a fun discovery for me in the old paperback booklet of plant names.
If you are a total plant geek and interested in plants named from Greco-Roman mythology (not me, of course), the book Gods and Goddesses in the Garden by Peter Bernhardt is a fun read and though Melampus isn’t mentioned, there are plenty other mythological characters and botany through out. Yay!
The photos are mine. The little purple flower peeking through is the wonderful Allionia.
It’’s true that every year I jump and shout about the fall blooming plants in the Aster family (Asteraceae) and I proclaim that there should be a festival to celebrate these wonderful fall bloomers. It’s a tradition I guess …me getting excited about fall bloomers…I mean the plants, well they do their thing whether I get excited or not.
Anyway, how fun to come across clumps of Gregg’s mistflower out in the desert scrub. What a marvelous plant! Its botanical name used to be Eupatorium greggii and that was fun, because I could jabber about Mithradates VI Eupator, the king of Pontus in northern Anatolia, not to mention the botanist, explorer and plant collector Josiah Gregg. Lucky you the listener that I ran out of time.
Gregg’s mistflower (Conoclinum dissectum) is an amazing butterfly magnet and as I mentioned it’s grown commercially and is no doubt available at your favorite nursery. Very cool!
The photos are mine. I hope they inspire you get out into desert, the foothills or the sky islands this fall. What a season!
It’’s true that every year I jump and shout about the fall blooming plants in the Aster family (Asteraceae) and I proclaim that there should be a festival to celebrate these wonderful fall bloomers. It’s a tradition I guess …me getting excited about fall bloomers…I mean the plants, well they do their thing whether I get excited or not.
Anyway, how fun to come across clumps of Gregg’s mistflower out in the desert scrub. What a marvelous plant! Its botanical name used to be Eupatorium greggii and that was fun, because I could jabber about Mithradates VI Eupator, the king of Pontus in northern Anatolia, not to mention the botanist, explorer and plant collector Josiah Gregg. Lucky you the listener that I ran out of time.
Gregg’s mistflower (Conoclinum dissectum) is an amazing butterfly magnet and as I mentioned it’s grown commercially and is no doubt available at your favorite nursery. Very cool!
The photos are mine. I hope they inspire you get out into desert, the foothills or the sky islands this fall. What a season!
Fall gets me excited and fall color is a crazy combination of blooming plants and plants with leaves changing color as they prepare to go dormant. Crazy fall!
Mountain oxeye (Heliopsis parviflora) is a real borderlands species, found from 4,000 to 8,000 feet in the mountains along the Arizona, New Mexico, Texas border and southward into Mexico.
I learned that the red bordered satyr (Gyrocheilus patrobas) flies from mid August to November and can be found in the mountains of southeastern Arizona. I had a couple friends who also noticed large groups of them flying and puddling along creeks in the Chiricahua Mountains. I think it is so cool that the host plant for this beautiful butterfly is bull grass (Muhlenbergia emersleyi), a favorite bunch grass of mine that has tall purplish seed head plumes. Another good reason to head for this hills this fall; mountain oxeye and red bordered satyrs await you. Oh my!
The photos of mountain oxeye are mine. The red bordered satyr on Ageratina is courtesy of my friend Taylor Anne. Thank you Taylor.
Fall gets me excited and fall color is a crazy combination of blooming plants and plants with leaves changing color as they prepare to go dormant. Crazy fall!
Mountain oxeye (Heliopsis parviflora) is a real borderlands species, found from 4,000 to 8,000 feet in the mountains along the Arizona, New Mexico, Texas border and southward into Mexico.
I learned that the red bordered satyr (Gyrocheilus patrobas) flies from mid August to November and can be found in the mountains of southeastern Arizona. I had a couple friends who also noticed large groups of them flying and puddling along creeks in the Chiricahua Mountains. I think it is so cool that the host plant for this beautiful butterfly is bull grass (Muhlenbergia emersleyi), a favorite bunch grass of mine that has tall purplish seed head plumes. Another good reason to head for this hills this fall; mountain oxeye and red bordered satyrs await you. Oh my!
The photos of mountain oxeye are mine. The red bordered satyr on Ageratina is courtesy of my friend Taylor Anne. Thank you Taylor.
The botanical name for jackass clover is Wislizenia refracta and for clammy weed it’s Polanisia dodecandra. I translate those very cool names in this episode. They are both in the Cleome family Cleomaceae having left the caper family, Capparaceae, due to DNA analysis. Well, fine! But listen many of the plants in Cleomaceae can be quite aromatic or foetid smelling. Your choice and both jackass clover and clammy weed live up to that description.
I think I showed great restraint, by the way, in not shouting jackass several times during this episode. I only tell you this so you can see how I’ve matured over the years. And hey, the photos are mine. The flowers of both species, the jackass clover above and clammy weed below, are beautiful!
The botanical name for jackass clover is Wislizenia refracta and for clammy weed it’s Polanisia dodecandra. I translate those very cool names in this episode. They are both in the Cleome family Cleomaceae having left the caper family, Capparaceae, due to DNA analysis. Well, fine! But listen many of the plants in Cleomaceae can be quite aromatic or foetid smelling. Your choice and both jackass clover and clammy weed live up to that description.
I think I showed great restraint, by the way, in not shouting jackass several times during this episode. I only tell you this so you can see how I’ve matured over the years. And hey, the photos are mine. The flowers of both species, the jackass clover above and clammy weed below, are beautiful!
At our little homestead we have more than enough canyon grape vines (Vitis arizonica) to share with the voracious caterpillars of the western grape skeletonizer. That said, I doubt I’ll get an invitation to be a spokesperson for the vintners of the Willcox wine region (the wine capitol of Arizona!) if I’m heard happily jabbering about western grape skeletonizers. But listen, I suspect the vineyards have Harrisina metallica pretty well figured out and I learned that there are organic ways to deal with these native rascals in a vineyard setting. Problem solved.
The photos are mine. The moth is on the flowers of white brush (Aloysia gratissima) blooming conveniently below some canyon grape in our yard. The munching caterpillars look like they’re wearing colorful striped sweaters.
At our little homestead we have more than enough canyon grape vines (Vitis arizonica) to share with the voracious caterpillars of the western grape skeletonizer. That said, I doubt I’ll get an invitation to be a spokesperson for the vintners of the Willcox wine region (the wine capitol of Arizona!) if I’m heard happily jabbering about western grape skeletonizers. But listen, I suspect the vineyards have Harrisina metallica pretty well figured out and I learned that there are organic ways to deal with these native rascals in a vineyard setting. Problem solved.
The photos are mine. The moth is on the flowers of white brush (Aloysia gratissima) blooming conveniently below some canyon grape in our yard. The munching caterpillars look like they’re wearing colorful striped sweaters.
This episode is a reminiscence sparked by some photos taken over 60 years ago. I’m pretty sure my father took the photos, because I can’t remember him ever being without a camera. So, thanks dad, I love these. I only wish you were around so I could tell you. The color photo is mine of our daughters Katy and Sarah in the Gila National Forest where we used to summer camp. Kids and nature.
And finally, thanks to Cricky for the friendship so many years ago and to Ms. Mesquitey for the friendship now and onward.
The photos are mine of the Mirabilis longiflora flowers and Manduca sexta, the Carolina Sphinx moth and tobacco hornworm. Note the seven streamline white stripes and the red horn on the tobacco hornworm. The adult moth, has some pretty cool markings as well.
We don’t find the tomato hornworms (M. quinquemaculata) in our garden, so I guessing that it’s the Carolina sphinx moth (M. sexta) that visits the long flowered 4 o’clock at our home, not knowing about its exclusivity, and shoot, it may even share with the white lined sphinx moth (Hyles lineata). Whaaaa?
And hey, maybe the 5 spotted hawkmoth only hangs out in the nearby hills with research scientists. Fine!
Thanks to Janine McCabe and JenJen Zen, who whether they know it or not…now they do… steered me in the right direction on these moths. Yay!
Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) are wonderful and lots of folks agree. The little town of Bisbee in the Mule Mountains of Cochise County, Arizona celebrates the return of the turkey vultures with a festival and parade every March. If you have hankering to go to Ohio where turkey vultures are called buzzards, the town of Hinckley has been celebrating the return of buzzards in March since the mid-1950s. The common name buzzard, by the way, came across the ocean with early colonists who thought the huge birds resembled the hawks (buzzards) of their home country.
I can’t think of anything really wonderful to say about the invasive plant buffalo bur (Solanum rostratum)…well, it is interesting, like lots of plants in the genus Solanum… it is a North American native (Great Plains) …cool star shaped flowers that display heteranthery (homework!)…well, it’s here to stay, so may as well learn it.
The photos are mine. The little black dots in the tree are vultures.
Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) are wonderful and lots of folks agree. The little town of Bisbee in the Mule Mountains of Cochise County, Arizona celebrates the return of the turkey vultures with a festival and parade every March. If you have hankering to go to Ohio where turkey vultures are called buzzards, the town of Hinckley has been celebrating the return of buzzards in March since the mid-1950s. The common name buzzard, by the way, came across the ocean with early colonists who thought the huge birds resembled the hawks (buzzards) of their home country.
I can’t think of anything really wonderful to say about the invasive plant buffalo bur (Solanum rostratum)…well, it is interesting, like lots of plants in the genus Solanum… it is a North American native (Great Plains) …cool star shaped flowers that display heteranthery (homework!)…well, it’s here to stay, so may as well learn it.
The photos are mine. The little black dots in the tree are vultures.
I grew up in the land of the black walnut, Juglans nigra. And if you grew up in the eastern US, then you did too. It has a very large range in eastern North America. And the eastern US forests have pecans, hickories and walnuts, all of which are trees in the walnut family, Juglandaceae!
Juglans major is the only species of walnut in Arizona. The species J. microcarpa is not that far way to the east in New Mexico and Texas and there are rumors of it being found in Arizona. More on that in future episodes!
Anyway, I love Arizona walnut! I’ve collected walnuts all over the borderlands and grown it for many years. It’s a fast grower when it’s young and grows to a magnificent long lived shade tree. Plant one for your kids or grand kids, or great grand kids or great great grand kids.
The photos are mine and taken at our home.
This is the time of year when you see desert millipedes out and about on muggy overcast days. Sometimes even crossing the two lane blacktop roads near my home. When that occurs I invariably will see several millipedes crossing the road in the same area, causing me to wonder why we don’t have millipede crossing signs along the highway. At least seasonally like the “ice on bridge” of “watch for water” signs. And I think we could agree that a “Millipede Crossing” sign with the silhouette of a millipede would be an excellent sign. But yes, I know it’s not likely that a millipede crossing sign will ever happen. Honestly if I had my way there would be crossing signs for every wild creature found in the borderlands.
The poem was originally my contribution to a poetic inventory of the Saguaro National Monument East done in 2012. The photos are mine.
I’m pretty sure I first encountered the plant called mala mujer in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson around 30 years ago. I had 10 years of commercial horticulture under my belt and I had become a native plant geek. “To heck with all these exotics,” I’d shout to people, “Grow native!” Yes, an obnoxious native plant geek. Anyway, I’m also pretty sure I turned that encounter into a Growing Native episode and I mispronounced the genus Cnidoscolus. “The C is silent,” a good friend botanist/horticulturist gently told me. Where would I be without friends like that?
There are close to 100 species of Cnidoscolus found in North America, South America and the West Indies. They range from perennials to shrubs to trees and they’re so fascinating that some folks collect them…Kids collect the whole set! And listen, many of the species used to be in the genus Jatropha, which is so very cool, because I saw Jatropha macrorhiza and Cnidoscolus growing side by in the Mule Mountains. Well, I thought it was cool.
If you were to look up Cnidoscolus angustidens on SEINet https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/ you’d find some neat photos of the flowers with their interesting stamen and pistils. The photos here are mine and taken on the day described in this episode.
At my age I should being thinking more of getting rid of clutter rather than adding to it. I like to tell our daughters Katy and Sarah that some day they can have it all. I’m not sure they find that very funny anymore, but hey, if you’re going to inherit the home then I’m afraid the clutter comes with it. I just hope everyone remembers some of the stories that go with it all.
Arizona white oak is Quercus arizonica. I’ve come across some magnificent ones over the last 28 years of living near them and hiking among them. We do have some planted in our yard as well, grown from collected acorns. They too have stories. Oh, and that’s Ms. Mesquitey’s hand in that photo of the trunk of the huge white oak I’m jabbering about in this episode.
The other photos give you a little idea of the sort of clutter found on the book shelves in our home near the banks of the Ol’ Guajolote. (Hmm, someone needs to dust.) I’m a big fan of those sombrero ash trays and they can hold some cool stuff. Call me the “King of Klutter!”
San Miguelito (Antigonon leptopus) is quite the Mexican native plant. I read that it’s found in habitat not only in Sonora and Chihuahua and southward, but also Baja California. Unfortunately, where this tough Mexican vine has been introduced as an ornamental in more mesic areas like the southeastern US, it has become an invasive varmint. Sad, but true, so don’t go sending seed back to friends in Florida. They already have some.
And finally; this episode of Growing Native is a tribute to Tucson and the surrounding wild landscape. It’s where I first cut my teeth on native plants and animals and I’ve been on a marvelous journey ever since.
The photo of the flowering San Miguelito is not mine, but stolen from Spadefoot Nursery’s website, so a thank you to them.
This episode is a reminiscence…something I seem to be doing a lot of lately…and also a plea for getting our children and grandchildren out of doors, be it a back yard or out to the desert.
The photos are mine. The Boy’s Book of Frogs, Toads and Salamanderscame out in 1957. I got it as a present when I was 9 or 10. The duded up Sonoran Desert Toad was the logo of the country band The Dusty Chaps.
I hope we all get all of our monsoon fixes this season. One of those for me and maybe you too, will be toads calling from puddles.
The photo is mine and taken from our home of storms in the distance as the sun is setting.
I wrote this song about Lycium fremontii when I was managing the native plant nursery of Desert Survivors on West Starr Pass in Tucson. The nursery is located right beside the Santa Cruz River at the base of A Mountain (Sentinel Peak). I used to perform the song whenever I did slide show talks and a version of it ended up on The Best of Growing Native Volume III. This is yet another version. I love the chorus and have always envisioned the song being part of a musical about Tucson or the Sonoran Desert that surrounds it. I’m looking for investors…I’m kidding.
I have so many 35 mm slides of this shrub and its flowers and fruit, but no digital photos, so the photo used here is by Tom Van Devender. He is a botanist, ecologist, biologist and a wonderful fellow. I thank him.
I’ve told the story of the yucca moths and the soaptree yuccas many times. I love to tell it when I give talks and I’m not making this up, many years ago on a special International Women’s Day on KXCI, my wife, yes, Ms. Mesquitey, told the yucca moth story on Growing Native. We both think it is one of the most beautiful and magical things that happen around us in the natural world. Yes, it’s part of an extremely long and always lengthening list of wonderful things, but what a great example of how we can’t possibly ever replace our native plants or pollinators…and why would we try. Go native!
The photos are mine and taken here at home of some Yucca elata flowers with a surprise; I was pulling back the flower petals to reveal the flower parts and lo and behold, there was Ms. Tageticula elatella! She’s on a stamen in both photos and was probably just hanging out and waiting for evening. If my hearing were better I probably could have heard her asking me to please lower the petals so she could get some sleep, as she had a long night ahead.
Every time I pull a reference book or field guide off the shelf to read about a recently seen insect I seem to run across a quote by the famous entomologist E. O. Wilson. I like this comment I ran across recently on insects, calling them “the little things that run the world.”
It’s easy to see why someone would want to become an entomologist. You could specialize in any one of a number of orders in the Class Insecta; Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Lipidoptera…how many orders of insects are there? It depends who you talk to, but there are around thirty orders. Whoa, you could spend several lifetimes studying insects and never be done! This Growing Native episode only mentions three species from three different orders. I’ve got some learning to do!
The photos are mine. The common buckeye butterfly is on an Apache plume shrub. The oak leaf grasshopper on the ground is among old oblong white oak leaves and the large leaves in the top right of the photo are sycamore. The fiery searcher ground beetle in my hand is with some of the old grass that came with the capture. It’s a beautiful beetle!
I pursued the Mexican stoneroller ( Campostoma ornatum) for a few minutes trying to get a photo or two before deciding to quit harassing the fish in that stream. The photos were poor, but confirmed a male stoneroller. I’m excited to have seen the fish, but I feel terrible about chasing a Mexican stoneroller in its breeding season.
Well, here are some things I’ve learned: The streams and pools of the Swisshelm, Chiricahua, Mule, Pedregosa, Perilla and Peloncillo mountains are part of the Rio Yaqui Drainage. Those water courses drain toward Sonora and the Rio Yaqui and have or had -some have been extirpated – the same eight species of fish that are found in that large Sonoran river. The Mexican stoneroller is one of those eight species and I owe that fish big time for helping cure the blues. Yay, for cool native fish in the borderlands!
The photos are mine of that riparian area and show the shallow stream that makes it very easy to spot interesting fish in the water.
The miller moths that showed up at our little homestead are the adult of the army cutworm (Euxoa auxiliaris) and they migrate from lower areas and head to upper elevations. I’ve read that they are common invaders of mountain cabins and summer homes, but the most interesting thing to me about miller moths is how they become part of the food chain in the upper elevations. In grizzly country the bears (black bears too) chow down on the hundreds of thousands of moths that migrate and hide in the hills. Around us, I’m guessing black bears and smaller omnivores like skunks, ringtails or coatimundi find them tasty as well. Now you know.
I’ve told the story of the yucca moths and the soaptree yuccas many times. I love to tell it when I give talks and I’m not making this up, many years ago on a special International Women’s Day on KXCI, my wife, yes, Ms. Mesquitey, told the yucca moth story on Growing Native. We both think it is one of the most beautiful and magical things that happen around us in the natural world. Yes, it’s part of an extremely long and always lengthening list of wonderful things, but what a great example of how we can’t possibly ever replace our native plants or pollinators…and why would we try. Go native!
The photos are mine and taken here at home. One photo of looking out across the land and then some yucca flower photos with a surprise; I was pulling back the flower petals to reveal the flower parts and lo and behold, there was Ms. Tageticula elatella! She’s on a stamen in both photos and was probably just hanging out and waiting for evening. If my hearing were better I probably could have heard her asking me to please lower the petals so she could get some sleep, as she had a long night ahead.
I forgot to say that false solomon’s seal was formerly in the family Liliaceae, but is now in Asparagaceae. There are 2 subspecies of Maianthemum racemosum. The subspecies out here in the mountainous forests of the western U.S. is amplexicaule, so it reads like this: Maianthemum racemosum subsp. amplexicaule. Yay! And between the 2 subspecies this plant can be found all over North America…all over…and into a bit of northern Mexico. So where ever you are, look in the rich damp soil of a mountain forest under story.
And doesn’t “rich damp soil” sound glorious? It almost makes me want to create a forest garden with that kind of soil and shade here at our place. Nah, I think I’ll just enjoy seeing this beautiful native in habitat.
The photos are mine and taken on the day described in this episode. Do you see the maple leaves?
The genus Artemisia is in the sunflower family Asteraceae and there are over 200 species found around the world in the northern hemisphere. Well, there are a few oddballs that show up elsewhere, but mainly the northern hemisphere. In Arizona Artemisia dracunculus is one of the 14 species of Artemisia found in the wild.
Our native tarragon isn’t going to compete with the domesticated Old World cultivars in pungency, but I’m guessing one could start finding the more flavorful wild plants and come up with some nice selections…or not.
At our place I could be out on the land for along time looking for flavor among the kazillion plants. As the King of Tarragonia I’m thinking I will need some serfs…er, helpers to do the taste tests. Lemme know if that interests you. You’ll be working on the new flavorful borderlands tarragon called Little Dragon.
The photo is mine of new shoots coming from last year’s old stems. And thanks to my son in law Jared for reminding me that the plant really is tarragon. Really!
There are 30 species of Dalea found in Arizona, many of which are the the nursery trade because they are so doggone pretty. How cool is that? Very.
Dalea formosa can be found in many different plant communities around Arizona , New Mexico. West Texas and southward. It sure seems to like rocky rubble wherever it is and the gravelly plain at the base of the Dragoon Mountain, where I love to poke around, fits the bill.
The yellow banner on the beautiful pea-like flowers (papilionaceous!) does change to purple (joining the purple keel and wings) as it ages and it may well be a sign that says “sold out.”
The photos are mine and taken in the area described in this episode.
The riparian woodland Ms. Mesquitey and I were hiking in is at around 6,000 ft. in elevation. I think that may be the upper limits of the elf owls elevation range. Elf owls (Micrathene whitneyi) winter in southern Mexico then migrate in the spring to southern Arizona, southwest New Mexico and west Texas to an amazing bunch of biotic communities where they breed and summer over. Lucky us!
The photo is taken from Wikipedia. I thank the unknown photographer who took it in Madera Canyon of the Santa Rita Mountains and shared it. It is a beautiful photo of the elf owl perched by a hole in a sycamore tree. Thank you very much, unknown photographer.
I started my nursery/horticulture career in the spring of 1980 at Desert Trees Nursery northwest of Tucson. It was and still is a wholesale nursery that grows and sells to folks in the trade. The popular verbenas we grew then were South American cultivars with names like Peruvian Red or Trailing Bubblegum…short-lived ornamentals…ugh. We also grew a weedy verbena called Verbena tenuisecta and that’s still in the trade, but as Glandularia pulchella. Pretty plant, but again, a native to SA. I think it was Mountain States Nursery out of Phoenix that started growing and selling the native Goodding verbena back then AND that’s who Ms. Mesquitey and I were contract growing 5,000 verbenas for a dozen years later.
Goodding verbena (Glandularia gooddingii) is a beautiful native verbena with a sweet wild fragrance. Stick your nose in the flowers and you’ll catch yourself saying, “Oh my, the desert is beautiful.” Yeah, it is.
The photos are mine of the seedlings I came across by our barn…scruffy and small, but still with the floral fragrance to die for.
Tecoma stans angustata is in the Bignonia family Bignoniaceae and there are a bunch of species of Tecoma starting here in the borderlands with our species and then heading south into the Americas where there’s maybe a dozen more, not to mention many cultivars. All with flowers that range from yellow to orange or red or even colors in between. Pretty tempting, huh?
The genus Tecoma comes from the Nahuatl word tecomaxochitl…what a marvelous mouthful…and it’s a common name for a number of plants with tubular and usually yellow or golden flowers. Now you know.
I don’t know when or where the common name esperanaza came into being, but I love it. I’m guessing you knew that.
All my photos of esperanza are 35mm slides and I took a mess of them over the many pre-digital years. So the photo used here is from the website https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/ and taken by the botanist Sue Carnahan. A big thank you to her. I promise to get some of my own photos soon…there are some beautiful tecomas in the Mule Mountains. Hmm, sounds like a quest to me.
Tecoma stans angustata is in the Bignonia family Bignoniaceae and there are a bunch of species of Tecoma starting here in the borderlands with our species and then heading south into the Americas where there’s maybe a dozen more, not to mention many cultivars. All with flowers that range from yellow to orange or red or even colors in between. Pretty tempting, huh?
The genus Tecoma comes from the Nahuatl word tecomaxochitl…what a marvelous mouthful…and it’s a common name for a number of plants with tubular and usually yellow or golden flowers. Now you know.
I don’t know when or where the common name esperanaza came into being, but I love it. I’m guessing you knew that.
All my photos of esperanza are 35mm slides and I took a mess of them over the many pre-digital years. So the photo used here is from the website https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/ and taken by the botanist Sue Carnahan. A big thank you to her. I promise to get some of my own photos soon…there are some beautiful tecomas in the Mule Mountains. Hmm, sounds like a quest to me.
Some personal history in poem and song. The photos are mine…well, I dug them out of the archives. That’s the very beginning of the Dusty Chaps in 1969. left to right Bill Lackey, Petey Mesquitey, Woody Janda, George Hawke.
Some personal history in poem and song. The photos are mine…well, I dug them out of the archives. That’s the very beginning of the Dusty Chaps in 1969. left to right Bill Lackey, Petey Mesquitey, Woody Janda, George Hawke.
Our one flowering wildflower on this wonderful day was the very pretty perennial called penny cress or candy tufts. It is the former Thlaspi fendleri, but is now Nocceae fendleri. That’s my photo of the plant and it doesn’t do the plant justice. If you get a chance look it up at the marvelous web site SEINet.
Alligator bark juniper apparently is the old common name. Now a days it is simply alligator juniper. I’m now up to date, but after seeing all those male juniper plants getting ready to explode with pollen I’m thinking it could be called “pollengator juniper.” The botanical, by the way is still Juniperus deppeana and alleluia for that!
In central Texas and the land of Juniperus ashei folks suffer terribly from the pollen and call their suffering cedar fever. We’ve been in Santa Fe when the Juniperus monosperma are releasing their pollen making much of the populace there quite miserable. I don’t remember anyone having a name for their misery, but we heard lots of nasally profanities.
Oh, the dog barking in the background is Burley. I suspect you will hear more of and about him. The photos are mine and taken on the day of our walk through the woodland.
Our one flowering wildflower on this wonderful day was the very pretty perennial called penny cress or candy tufts. It is the former Thlaspi fendleri, but is now Nocceae fendleri. That’s my photo of the plant and it doesn’t do the plant justice. If you get a chance look it up at the marvelous web site SEINet.
Alligator bark juniper apparently is the old common name. Now a days it is simply alligator juniper. I’m now up to date, but after seeing all those male juniper plants getting ready to explode with pollen I’m thinking it could be called “pollengator juniper.” The botanical, by the way is still Juniperus deppeana and alleluia for that!
In central Texas and the land of Juniperus ashei folks suffer terribly from the pollen and call their suffering cedar fever. We’ve been in Santa Fe when the Juniperus monosperma are releasing their pollen making much of the populace there quite miserable. I don’t remember anyone having a name for their misery, but we heard lots of nasally profanities.
Oh, the dog barking in the background is Burley. I suspect you will hear more of and about him. The photos are mine and taken on the day of our walk through the woodland.
There are 2 species of walnuts here in the borderlands of southern Arizona; the Arizona walnut (Juglans major) that I talked about and a species called little walnut (Juglans microcarpa) which is uncommon, but I found it growing in a canyon on the east side of the Catalina Mountain above Redington along the San Pedro River. Travel eastward to the Trans Pecos of Texas and it’s quite common in that region.
In the eastern U.S. it is the land of the black walnut (Juglans nigra), not to mention other trees in the walnut family (Juglandaceae) like the butternut and a few hickory and pecan species (Carya).
I think when I first saw a walnut tree in southern Arizona in the 1960s, I had a “Whoa, that’s a walnut tree!” moment. Hmm, I still have that reaction and Arizona walnut trees (Juglans major) are magnificent! I have so many memories of hikes or journeys in southern Arizona that include walnut trees…sometimes up high in the mountains or as I mentioned in this episode, in a riparian canyon cutting into the Sonoran Desert. They’re part of the flora and fauna that make the borderlands so diverse and beautiful and occupied, not vacant.
The photos are taken from SEINet and are either by Max Licher or Leslie Landrum…I mixed them up, but I thank them.
The genus is now Hesperocyparis, but back in the olden days I learned the rough bark Arizona cypress of southeastern Arizona as Cupressus arizonica ssp. arizonica and the Arizona cypress of central Arizona with its smooth bark was Cupressus arizonica ssp. glabra. The smooth bark Arizona cypress is the one you are most likely to find in the nursery trade and there are numerous named cultivars…25 to 30! Anyway, the wild species range further than just parts Arizona, but it is definitely a southwestern native that makes for a great large tree in your yard or part of a terrific wind break.
The photos are mine. You can see the young cones (Ms. Mesquitey’s hand in that pic) and then the fascinating old open cones. Pretty cool.
We are living in stressful times and getting out of the house, if only to your back yard, is always a good idea. Native flora and fauna can cure the blues. I, of course, wanted to ramble on about a few other plants we saw during the excursion described, but luckily for you I ran out of time. The Berberis wilcoxii under the lichen covered rock outcropping used to be 4 to 5 feet tall in thickets, so it was fun to find the small thicket starting up under some Emory oaks (Quercus emoryi). And we are certainly going to go back and visit those Salix irrorata in that old filled lake…. those and a dozen other plants….next time.
The photos are mine and taken on the day described. Those are male (staminate) flowers on the willow stem. And I love the little barberry thicket up against the oak trunk.
Encelia farinosa (brittle bush, incienso) loves rocky hillsides and gravelly desert. And though this native shrub has a large range showing up in the Mojave and Great Basin Deserts, for me personally the bright yellow flowers atop the silvery foliage shout, “Sonoran Desert!”
If you’re interested in ethnobotany (and why wouldn’t you be?) this is a good plant to add to your journal with its many uses, from chewing gum to incense. And good native plant nurseries grow and sell this wonderful wide ranging native, so plant or 2 or 3 in your personal habitat to remind you that, “the desert is beautiful.” Yeah it is.
I couldn’t find any digital photos of brittle bush in my collection (35 mm slides, yes, of course), but there are numerous photos on line. Well, of all things, I found and really liked these pics at at a web site about the Mojave Desert called BirdandHike.com. I thank them.
When I was a boy vultures were called buzzards. It’s an interesting common name that came across the ocean with early British colonists who had no vultures in their home country, but where hawks were called buzzards. “These large birds soaring over Jamestown must be a type of buzzard,” the colonist said.
Our vultures are in the family Cathartidae and we have 3 in Arizona; the turkey vulture, the black vulture and the California condor. Cool! And yes, turkey vultures will vomit when distressed or disturbed and yes they do urinate/defecate (your choice!) onto their legs when they get hot. It’s a form of evaporative cooling called urohidrosis. Kids, do not try this at home!
Below is a poster for the Bisbee, Arizona celebration. See you there?
Sandhill cranes have been wintering over in the Sulfur Springs valley since the mid 1960s. The expansion of irrigated agricultural fields and the availability of shallow waters for roosting ( Willcox Playa) were the draw for this ancient migratory bird. Now a days there are a few spots to see them: the Willcox Playa, Whitewater Draw and…I’m not making this up… the Willcox golf course. AND if you get out and about in the valley you can find them feeding in the aforementioned agricultural fields. Sandhill cranes, by the way, are Grus canadensis with some subspecies as well. So now you know. Below is a well known quote, but always worth the repeating.
“When we hear [the crane’s] call we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.” – Aldo Leopold
Growing plants and being involved in horticulture since 1980 meant knowing the USDA’s plant hardiness zones so I could jabber to folks knowingly (Ha!) about plant choices for their personal habitat. To make things a little more confusing Sunset Magazine created their own hardiness and planting zones for the western US. Jeez, Sunset!
During my brief tenure at the University of Arizona I learned C. Hart Merriam’s life zone system created in 1896 and I referred to and preferred that system for many years (see photo below) and it did make me sound pretty smart. Then in 1994 along comes David Brown’s Biotic Communities, Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico (it came with a big map!). Some nights that book still comes to bed with me.
So I’m guessing you’ve figured out that I’m more interested in biotic communities than planting zones. If you plant plants native to your biotic community…well, problem solved. Planting made simple by Petey Mesquitey! For more information and discussion on life zones and biotic communities we’ll see you in the Borderlands Biome Bar. Oh, and that was our new pooch Burley adding his 2 cents at the end of this episode.
Anyone who lives in groundhog country will have a woodchuck tale or two to tell. Growing up in Kentucky I sure did. At the University of Arizona in ’67 or ’68 the first poem I wrote for my freshman poetry class was about groundhogs. Sad, but true.
Anemone tuberosa is truly a harbinger of the spring to come and I talk about this sweet early bloomer every February.
The photo of the Anemone tuberosa is mine. And below you’ll find a book highly recommended by the local school librarian. “It’s quite informative and considerably lighter in bed.” She should know…we sleep together.
Anyone who lives in groundhog country will have a woodchuck tale or two to tell. Growing up in Kentucky I sure did. At the University of Arizona in ’67 or ’68 the first poem I wrote for my freshman poetry class was about groundhogs. Sad, but true.
Anemone tuberosa is truly a harbinger of the spring to come and I talk about this sweet early bloomer every February.
The photo of the Anemone tuberosa is mine. And below you’ll find a book highly recommended by the local school librarian. “It’s quite informative and considerably lighter in bed.” She should know…we sleep together.
I forgot to say that the genus Crotalus comes from the Greek krotalon or krotos for rattle or rattling. (A couple favorite native plants are called rattle-box and the genus Crotalaria) The specific epithet of the mojave rattlesnake is scutulatus and refers to the 2 or 3 are large scales between the supraoculars (above the eyes). The species name of the western diamond back is atrox from Latin for harsh or horrible. It’s the root of the word atrocious!
The photos are mine and if you’re still feeling herpetological, here are some sources:
Advocates for Snake Preservation (ASP), The Tucson Herpetological Society and these 2 field guides:
Amphibians and Reptiles of Arizona
Thomas C. Brennan and Andrew T. Holycross
The first edition looks pretty good on my truck seat, but a 2nd edition is due out Spring of 2022.
Arizona’s Amphibians and Reptiles: A Natural History and Field Guide
John Murphy
A nice hefty field guide with a lot of information.
I’ve known barn owls since I was a kid in Kentucky and I always saw them in barns roosting or nesting up high in the rafters. I remember finding a dead one in a barn once and taking it home to dissect. Some things never change I guess, and though I no longer have the urge to cut into dead animals I still bring them home where they usually end up in our freezer. So you may open our freezer and find a collection dead animals in there next to frozen chiles or some leftover pozole.
I love finding owl pellets beneath trees. The pellets are the indigestible part of an owls last meal. The gizzard can’t deal with all the fur and bones and so that comes back up in a tidy oblong ball. And, I’m not making this up, you can buy owl pellets on line, which means someone somewhere is selling them to suppliers! I’m going to stick to selling plants.
According to the writing on the inside cover I bought my Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds in February of 1970. It’s the Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Oh, and it’s hardcover, which took a beating in its travels. I rebound it a few years ago (see photo), and it should be good for more time on truck seats. And I think I’m gonna start reading more of the field descriptions out loud, which probably means I’ll be birding by myself.
The photos are mine…you probably figured that out. I like the top of the rodent skull in the upper pellet and look at all the bones and fur in the others. Pretty cool. And here is a link to yet another show I did about a barn owl that I found dangling from a fence line. Caution: I wring the necks of some Asian ring neck doves (wring neck!) in the episode.
Tyto alba on a fence
One of the most magical moments of my childhood was when I first dug up potatoes in a garden and we later had some for dinner. I was awe struck! The domestication and cultivation of the potato (Solanum tuberosum) that I was digging up in that garden or the potatoes we purchase at the grocery store goes back thousands of years in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia. And isn’t it wonderful crazy that here in North America the cultivation of the native Four Corners potato (Solanum jamesii) here in the southwest goes back 11,000 years. Well, the range of Solanum jamesii is far beyond the four corners area and you can bet indigenous folks all over North America have been eating species of wild native potatoes for thousands of years. Pretty cool.
The photos of Solanum stoloniferum(S. fendleri) are mine and taken in the Chiricahua Mountains. The rainbow photo was taken by my old friend Kate Turner and taken from her little homestead the very day I was jabbering about in this episode. Thanks Kate!
One of the positive sides of isolating and staying very close to home during the pandemic is that we discovered new places and rediscovered old haunts. I can’t tell you how many times I roared through and past Leslie Canyon in my truck headed to goodness knows where. “I’ll stop there, next time,” I’d mutter to no one in the truck. Well, it looks like now I’ll be stopping on a regular basis…way too may cool plants and animals.
The refuge was created in 1988 to protect 2 species of native fish, the Yaqui chub and the Yaqui top minnow. The plant list for the refuge was done then and it included the plants of the San Bernardino Wildlife Refuge to the southeast along the International Border and with very different biomes. When I first looked for a plant list I found the old one from the 1980s and thought it seemed to be missing some stuff. That makes sense because both refuges were established about water and native fish and maybe the flora wasn’t as important as the fish at the time, but then I found the 2014 plant survey list for just the Leslie Canyon Refuge and oh my goodness, it must have been so fun to do that work. Over 300 species were added to the plant list! The Leslie Canyon National Wildlife Refuge is truly about interesting flora and fauna.
The photos are mine of Condalia warnockii in a dry rocky desert …common names: warnock condalia or Mexican crucilllo. And below are a couple links for more information about the refuges. Check it out.
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/leslie_canyon/
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/San_Bernardino/
Cactus wrens were one of the first Sonoran Desert birds I learned when I arrived in Tucson to go to the University of Arizona. They are such rascals! Oh, and I grew ironwood trees when I was working in nurseries in Tucson. My goodness that spiny desert native did not like to be tamed in a nursery bucket. Anytime you trimmed a branch, five new spiny shoots would grow out by the cut. Ha! I loved it!
The photo of the cactus wren is from the Tucson Audubon Society web page and the photos of the ironwood tree and blossoms are mine. I love the Sonoran Desert.
Happy Holidays!
I have a bunch of photos from Christmas tree hunts and most of them are 35 mm slides. These few here were taken over the last several years. I always try to capture Marian measuring the tree…when we remember the tape measure. I love these photos for obvious reasons, but look at the country we’re in. Rugged and Beautiful.
I was reading a Christmas card from some very dear friends and in the hand written portion of the card it mentioned this season as being the “holiest of times.” The phrase resonated with me as I realized that we do live in the holiest of times… always. All the flora and fauna in the borderlands are sacred and we do live in the holiest of times. This episode of Growing Native could have gone on for a very long time, but I stopped at 5 minutes. I suspect you have your own list of holy moments and sacred places and things.
The photos are mine
The vast landscapes of the southwest are to die for and every once in a while I capture one with my camera. More and more I remind myself to just take it all in. Shout and exclaim, repeat the words “beautiful” and “oh my” and share with someone you love.
Oh, and try not to lose your cool over an invasive species that shows up. Easier said than done, I know… I know.
American Threefold (Trixis californica) is a great little native and it has been grown and sold in the nursery trade, so I’m not the only one that thinks it’s a cool plant. It’s a low plant with a woody base and so it’s considered a subshrub, but hey, it’s a little shrub, so how about “shrubette?”
The photos are mine except for the flower close up. That photo was taken by Patrick Alexander. I like it because it shows the clefts on the lip of the petal (ray). My photos were taken in the Galiuro Mountains and Patrick’s photo in the Tucson Mountains.
I always want to add an extra T when I write Yucca baccata, but no, two Cs and one T is correct. The specific epithet baccata is from Latin and means berry. The 6-8” long fleshy fruit look more like bananas than berries, so the common name banana yucca gets it right.
Anyway, I hope you’re getting some time away from your home and out into nature…out into the wild. Get out and make some biome memories and we’ll compare notes soon!
The photos are mine and taken at the base of the Winchester Mountains.
There are around 30 species of Porophyllum, the majority of which are found in Mexico and southward. Around me in the borderlands of Arizona Sonora there are 2 species; yerba de venado or Porophyllum gracile, a perennial and P. ruderale, the annual version jabbered about in this episode of Growing Native.
Porophyllum ruderale has quite a range from the mesas and mountains near me and southward to South America. That explains why one of the common names for this plant is Bolivian cilantro. Oh, and that’s only one of the common names (there are many, as it does cross a lot of borders!), here are a couple more: yerba porosa or pápalo. Now you know.
The photos are mine of the plant with dry seed heads on a rocky slope in the Galiuro Mountains.
The loose rock fandango can get pretty elaborate with elements of modern dance, hokey pokey, ballet and of course some jazz hands thrown into the mix. The expression “dance like no one is watching’’ comes to mind and I certainly hope so.
The photos are mine. I thought you’d like to see the fraction of the Galiuro Mountains (Galuros!) I poke around in. Shin daggers are Agave schottii and the photo is of just a few of them. Multiply those by several hundred thousand and you get an idea of what you’re hiking in on many mesas and slopes. Yikes and ouch!
But listen, walking slowly and observing the flora, fauna, geology and distant vistas is the most wonderful thing and life is beautiful. Yeah, it is.
Xanthisma gracilis is an annual and found all over the southwest and into Mexico as well. Duh. A common name is slender goldenweed or spiny zinnia. I do love the botanical Xanthisma. It sounds like a medication, doesn’t it, and if you did a little homework you’d find out that it does have some medicinal uses.
I was driving to Bisbee recently and saw stands of flowering tarbush and that is what somehow inspired this show about the different biotic communities that surround us here in the borderlands. Tarbush, Flourensia cernua, and creosote, Larrea tridentata, are the predominate plants in that wonderful piece of Chihuahuan desert scrub just outside of town. That’s two species that also might be fun to do a little homework on and find their medicinal uses as well, so now you have an assignment. Oh, and if you get out of your truck and wander through that desert scrub it only gets better botanically. I do recommend that.
The photos are mine. You can see the classic aster flower head of the Xanthisma and also the nodding flower heads of the Flourensia that the specific epithet cernua is refers to. The phrase nodding heads reminds me of Art History 101 at the University of Arizona and my nodding head during lectures.
Heuchera is found in the saxifrage family, Saxifracaceae, with 80 other genera that includes the genus Saxifraga and its 400 species. Yikes!
My old (1976) Hortus Third says that there are about 35-50 Heuchera species found in North America and they are largely western. Well, there are 8 species found in Arizona and Heuchera sanguinea is found in Arizona, New Mexico and southward…of course.
And a reminder that if you are interested in medicinal plants, then this is a good genus to look up in an herbal or two or three.
The photos are mine. The flowers are beautiful, but check out the basal leaves as well. Pretty cool.
The glossary in the back of a flora is full of wonderful words that you may never had heard or seen before, especially if you’re not a botanist. I tend to wander up and down a page perusing other words and descriptions after I’ve found the explanation I was looking for. Sad, but true. Oh, and I can now say loculicidal rapidly 3 times in a row!
The photos are mine. I love the seed capsules with the oak stump behind. You can see the leaves aren’t really triangles, but hastate. Uh-oh, open up the glossary.
The photo taken on the flora page illustrates how the top of the seed capsule weakens and opens displaying the small black seed.
I originally learned the botanical name of this native plant as Eupatorium greggii, but it is now Conoclinum dissectum. It’s neat that the tribute to Josiah Gregg, an adventurer, explorer, naturalist and plant collector of the early 1800s, is still part of the common name Gregg’s mistflower.
The photos were taken at a marvelous rocky plain near the Dragoon Mountains. It’s an area where I find all sorts of interesting plants and this large stand of Gregg’s mistflower was fabulous. I believe that’s a Painted Lady butterfly visiting the flowers. That’s only one of several species of butterflies seen on the flowers. Oh, and that bouquet on our table lasted several days!
The photos are mine of a chiltepin at our our home. It’s one of several we have in pots. They are great in the ground too, but I love the way they look in a pot. Look at all that fruit. Hotcha!
I concentrated on a few fall bloomers in the Aster family that have yellow flowers and I bet you thought of other species that should have been included. It will be one huge Autumnal Asteraceae Festival!
I have a tinge of guilt leaving out plants like the Baccharis species I mentioned, but I will give them a celebration later this fall…at least Baccharis sarothroides (desert broom), right?
I believe that the genus name Aldama honors Juan Aldama who fought in the Mexican War of Independence and is a national hero. I learned that many towns and places are named in his honor, so maybe the plant name is in his honor or a place named in his honor. Either way, that’s pretty cool.
The photos are mine of Aldama cordifolia, the former Viguiera cordifolia, but still heartleaf goldeneye.
I like the phrase in Arizona Flora about the Loasa family Loasaceae ; it is “remarkable for the diversity and peculiar structure of the hairs.” And I love the name Cevallia. Well, the whole name just has a great sound and feel to it; Cevallia sinuata. You say the name and folks will think you really know what you’re talking about.
Oh, I meant to mention that I found the etymology of the name on the SEINet web site, so now you know.
The photos are mine. The butterfly atop the flowers is a Southern Dogface. You can see the eye but not the “dogface” that gives it the name, because the wings aren’t open. When photographing butterflies I often catch myself muttering, “open your damn wings.” Patience, Petey.
Here are some morning glory photos. Above is Ipomoea ternifolia var. leptotoma and the photo below is of some floral chaos featuring the red flowering Ipomoea cristulataamong others in the midst. You can see an Apache plume flower making an appearance in there too. Oh my!
For photos and more information about the white lined spinx moth caterpillar and adult check out the very cool site BugGuide.Net.
I grew up in Kentucky where the state flower is goldenrod. The particular species that has that honor is Solidago gigantea. I wonder how it was chosen as there are 30 species of goldenrod found in the state. In the vacant lots of my childhood neighborhood tall goldenrods towered over me in glorious bright yellow bloom every fall and I remember that sneezing and watery eyed Kentuckians would blame goldenrod for their terrible allergies. Even nowadays when I mention that I grow goldenrod, folks will respond with stories of their terrible goldenrod allergies. I try to explain that Solidago pollen is not wind born, and only spread by pollinators and that their allergies are from other fall bloomers that have wind born pollen. In Kentucky as elsewhere, that would be species of Ambrosia or ragweed. My defense of goldenrod falls on deaf ears and I don’t sell many goldenrod, but I sure do plant them around our place, especially Solidago missouriensis.
There are eleven species of goldenrod found in Arizona and you can find a species almost anywhere in the state from 2,000’ to 9,500’ in elevation. So no matter where you live in the state you can blame your fall allergies on a Solidago species. Ha!
The photos are by Max Licher at SEINet and me here at home. His is the better photo of the flowers, but you can see in my photo that Solidago missouriensis spreads from the roots and becomes quite a clump …a golden flowering clump.
This episode is a reminiscence sparked by some old photos. I’m pretty sure my father took the photos, because I can’t remember him ever being without a camera. So, thanks dad, I love these. I only wish you were around so I could tell you.
And of course thanks to Cricky for the friendship so many years ago and to Ms. Mesquitey for the friendship now and onward.
Chalybion californicum is the name of the metallic blue black wasp. Both male and female feed on nectar and they are easily spotted on blooming plants like thimblehead (Hymenothrix wislizeni). The female, however does all the nest building…well, she finds the old nests of Sceliphron cementarium, the narrow waist wasp and refurbishes them to her liking. So it’s Ms. Sceliphron that builds the original mud cells and Ms. Chalybion remodels and adds additions, not to mention stunned spiders for her offspring to eat. That’s pretty cool.
When I followed these wasps around the barn I realized that they were also searching for spiders and there are plenty. So the barn not only offers a place for the mud nests, but also a hunting ground. Oh, I should point out that these mud daubers are not aggressive so I’m not afraid of getting chased or stung. Maybe if I had four more appendages I would worry, but I’m also too big to stuff in a mud cell.
Both of these wasps are in the insect order Hymenoptera, which is one of the largest insect orders in the world. It includes bees, wasps, ants and saw flies. If you want to learn more about Hymenoptera I recommend the book Bees, Wasps and Ants by Eric Grissell. What a wonderful author. The book is so readable for novices like myself, and no you may not borrow my copy.
The photos of the mud nests are mine. For photos of the two species that I jabber about please check out Bug Guide on line.