Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

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. Anyway, another cool thing 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. So, a fun discovery for me in an old paperback booklet of plant names. Lemme see…oh, if you are interested in other plants named from Greco-Roman mythology (not…

I’ll let you know how this all goes. I have many acorns to plant, but I like growing little oaks and we’ve done this before. A greenhouse full of oak seedlings sounds like fun. Hey, maybe next year I’ll start going back to farmers markets! It could happen, right? And, one last thing; I don’t think we have ever gathered acorns without a wonderful encounter with some wildlife. Bears, deer, turkeys, javelinas, porcupines, jays, pigeons, woodpeckers, caterpillars. Between us, Marian and I have some great oak and wildlife stories Hang out by an oak (acorns or not) and you will…

I learned that there are twenty-six species of milkweed longhorn beetles (Tetraopes spp.) and up to fifteen of those are in the US. I found references to three species where Ms. Mesquitey and I were traipsing around in the Chiricahua Mountains. The beetle I saw and photographed on Lemmon’s milkweed (Asclepias lemmonii) is Tetraopes femoratus or the red femured milkweed borer…cute red thighs on their beetle legs. Oh, the color of this beetle, red with some black spots gives you a chance to use the word aposematic, meaning; inedible or yech! And, I’m pretty excited about the fact that this…

Santa Rita Acacia or Mariosousa millefolia  is found in the borderlands of Arizona and Sonora between 3,000 and 5,000 ft. Hey,  two different countries share this species! Well, that’s 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 around well before honey bees even arrive.…

I grew up in the land of the black walnut, Juglans nigra. And, if you grew up in the eastern…

In 1881 botanists John and Sara Lemmon were collecting and botanizing in an area called Rucker Valley in the Chiricahua…