Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

The photos are mine.

One of the positive sides of isolating and staying very close to home during the pandemic is that I am discovering new places and rediscovering 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.

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 fauna and flora.

The photos are mine and of Condalia warnockii in dry rocky desert …common names: warnock condalia or Mexican crucilllo. And below are a couple links for more information about the refuges.

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/leslie_canyon/

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/San_Bernardino/

It doesn’t take too much to get me excited and I think finding Wright’s mock buckthorn was pretty cool, not to mention just what the doctor ordered; “Get out into the wild to cure the blues Mister Mesquitey!”

I had the hardest time figuring out how to pronounce Sageretia. It’s one of those words you may read over the years, but never say out loud. Finally, I took my own advice: say it loud with authority and let folks think, “So that’s the way you say that.”

I love that the only claim to fame I found for the French botanist Augustin Sageret, whose name is honored, was that he hybridized a musk melon with a cantaloupe in 1826.  I wondered if he was invited to soirees because of that. “Let’s invite Augie and ask him to bring the melons.”

No plant photos of mine, just me wandering among some plants at home last summer. However, below is a link to a good description of Sageretia wrightii with some good photos as well.

https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/taxa/index.php?taxon=3558&clid=3121

The photos are mine and of a fruity canyon hackberry (Celtis reticulata), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium!), blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis!!) and the “rustyish” seed pods on wait a minute bush (Mimosa biuncifera). If you want some more “ish colors” this winter, I suggest a hike.

Simmondsia chinensisis is now in its own family, Simmondsiaceae, and not in the boxwood family, Buxaceae. Yay!

The foliage and stems of jojoba are browsed by wildlife and domestic critters. The nuts are eaten as well, explaining other  common names like goat-nut, pig-nut and deer-nut. Yes the nuts are edible for humans too, but just a few at a time please, as too many will act as a laxative. That’s not hard to understand considering the liquid wax found in the seed. Jojoba is an important commercial plant because of that liquid wax, but don’t forget it is also a beautiful wild evergreen shrub. Even Arizona Flora says “it is a rather handsome shrub.” That’s the truth!

Anyway, I do love the story of how jojoba’s Latinized name came about and I’m glad I got to tell it. The photos are mine and taken in the Dos Cabezas Mountains. Jojoba is dioecious, so male and female flowers are found on separate plants and I thought you’d like to see the male and female flowers.

Thank you so much for your support of KXCI Community Radio and thank you for listening to Growing Native. Here’s to 2021!