Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

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!

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 common name of cacomistle (cacomixtle) for the ringtail is from the Nahuatl language. It translates to “half cat.” I can see that, especially when you watch them scurry around. “Look a kitty!” Another common name is miner’s cat, from the fact that miners/prospectors liked to have ringtails around for the same reason I do; they eat rodents.  Yay!

The photos are Ms. Mesquitey’s and taken one early morning in our greenhouse. Yes, that is a scat on top of the irrigation clock. Well, I took that photo… of course.

SPECIAL BONUS! Here’s a link to another episode about some nearby ringtails:

https://kxci.org/podcast/literary-ringtails/

In episode three, the members of a polycule, (a network of people in nonmonogamous relationships), share how they navigate everything from first dates to jealousy to “postcoital puppy piles.”

Listen on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/love-in-the-time-of-everyone/id1234895446

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/5InE1a5Eyd2y12Ys74OPs2

Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/show/love-in-the-time-of-everyone

Music: Local Kindergartner

I hope you’re getting some time away from your home and out into nature…out into the wild. It sure is easy to social distance when you are out in the desert or mountains, but Ms. Mesquitey and I always carry masks with us, just in case we run into a situation that requires them, like having to stop for gas.  Anyway, get out and make some biome memories and we’ll compare notes  soon!

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. Another common name for this yucca is datil, which comes from the Spanish name for date palm fruit/berries…dates. Pronounce it in Spanish, not like the anglicized pronunciation of the town Datil in New Mexico. Perhaps a more accurate common Spanish name should have been platano, but datil it is!

The photos are mine and taken in the desert near the Winchester Mountains.

There are three native species of mesquite found in Arizona; the western honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa var. torreyana), the screwbean mesquite (P. pubescens) and the velvet mesquite (P. velutina). Along the Interstate highways you find Texas honey mesquites (P. glandulosa var. glandulosa) indicating where Texas cattle were being moved to feedlots in California…manure falling from trailers. Texas honey mesquite is a popular urban landscape tree as well. In the urban areas of southern Arizona, you will also find an abundance of South American mesquites that fall under the common misnomer of “Chilean mesquite” and they fill city streets and neighborhood yards. Oh, and a quick note… native screwbean mesquite can be found in some landscapes as well. I suspect fans of this mesquite love the clusters of twisted seed pods and decorate their bookshelves, kitchen counters and mantles with them. I’m guilty.

I love it when I pull a favorite reference book off the shelf it will flop open to a much used section. Benson and Darrow’s Trees and Shrubs of the Southwestern Deserts always opens to the section on Prosopis species. It must be a sign.

Here are some other books that tend to flop open to “mesquite” after they come off the shelf:

At the Desert’s Green Edge, an Ethnobotany of the Gila River Pima, by Amadeo Rea.

Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert, by Wendy Hodgson

Mesquite, An Arboreal Affair, by Gary Paul Nabhan

Eat Mesquite and More, A Cookbook for Sonoran Desert Foods and Living, by Desert Harvesters

Cooking the Wild Southwest, Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants, by Carolyn Niethammer

The photos are mine. Mesquite flowers and that’s Ms. Mesquitey under that huge velvet mesquite. I love the photo of the gnarly old mesquite trunk still sending up new growth. What a tough tree!

This is a Re-Petey from 2016 and it has not been chilly at all! But as I sit and write this in November of 2020  (in my madras shorts), temperatures for the coming week are headed to normal…as in chilly! So dig out the flannel and make me look good. Also, in these distressing Covid 19 times, please, please please play it safe over these holidays. We can do big family and friend celebrations next year when we are all safe and sound.  I’ll be there with you!

Below are my comments from the original 2016 episode.

I can’t believe I almost let November go by without at least mentioning desert broom (Baccahris sarothroides).  It is the native plant the folks love to hate, as it comes up in the desert where ever the soil has been disturbed. Drive through any new subdivision that took a desert spot around Tucson and just count the desert broom plants. Not only is it a prolific seed producer, but once established it is very tenacious with its deep tap root. Folks hate it, but the answer is simple: leave the desert alone. Whaa?!

Though we don’t have many desert broom right around our little homestead we do have a native plant that drives me crazy too with it’s ability to pop up where I don’t want it. In habitat Brickellia floribunda or brickell bush is found in the rich soils of canyon bottoms and I suppose I should be flattered that I’ve created such nice rich soil for it to feel at home in. And of course it loves a good watered nursery mix, so I’m constantly pulling it from plants that I grow in our small nursery.

There are over 24 species of brickell bush in Arizona alone and some of them are quite attractive, but I’m sorry Brickellia floribunda, you drive me crazy. Maybe it’s payback for my teasing of my Sonoran Desert friends about desert broom.

The photos are mine. That’s a brickell bush growing up beside my ‘46 Chevy and the other photo is of the bristly seed heads. And, by the way, if you lived in Tucson in the 1970’s you may have seen me driving that old truck and hauling band equipment up and down Speedway Blvd and 4th Ave. We had some good adventures with it out in the desert as well.

In episode two, Jack and Susan share how they went from a reluctant first encounter to 30 years of marriage.

Jack and Susan

 

Music: Local Kindergartner

The geology found at Fort Bowie National Historic Site certainly makes for the diverse flora. Hills or slopes of limestone…