Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

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…

The American botanist Soreno Watson, 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 Plummer and so we have Allium plummerae. Common names of this borderlands’ native are Tanner’s Canyon onion or Plummer’s onion.  Around our place we call it Sara’s onion. The photos are mine. The onion pics were taken just above Onion Saddle in the Chiricahua Mountain. The books came off my shelf.  Wynne Brown is local and wonderful.

The original version of the “El Niño Song” aired on KXCI, Tucson’s Community Radio, November 28th 1997. That version can also be found on The Best of Growing Native Volume 1, (a real collector’s item). Now you know. So here’s to a wet winter and maybe… just maybe… some crazy spring wildflowers!

Threadleaf groundsel (Senecio flaccidus var. flaccidus) is a pretty native shrub… grey foliage and yellow flowers! The green leaf variety, S. flaccidus var. monoensis, is quite pretty as well… green foliage and yellow flowers! We find that variety growing in the desert and low hills around Fort Bowie National Historic Site. I meant to mention in this ramble that old range plant books and even in some floras, it’s noted that this plant is quite poisonous to cattle or horses. This species of groundsel or ragwort (great name) is all over the range and you gotta wonder if the poisoning…

The botanical name for the southwest white pine of this episode is Pinus strobiformis. I read that specific epithet stobiformis comes from the Greek for twisted, referring to the cone. Okay, that could be, but listen, Linnaeus named the eastern white pine Pinus strobus and strobus is from a Latin word for a pine with aromatic resin. Sooo, I think Sargent (not Englemann, cause Sargent says so) named the southwest white pine strobiformis meaning it is in the form of the eastern white pine. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. Feeling frisky! The photos are mine. Look at…

Hummingbird trumpet (Epilobium canum) kicks into bloom in late summer and early fall and the red flowers are spectacular! Until then it sits around being ignored…it’s not like the foliage is anything to write home about. And, in the nursery trade the plants are notorious brittle. I would always put on extra plants when loading a truck, because guaranteed, several plants would have broken stems by the time they were unloaded. Well darn, it blooms late and the stems break…I know, I know, but it’s okay, cause it’s a wonderful plant. You need one or two in your personal habitat.…