For this episode, Nature Notes is teaming up with “West Texas Wonders” – a new reporting series, where listeners ask questions and Marfa Public Radio finds answers. Alan Cox is a Big Spring native.

“One of the deals that I've always been curious about are the scrubby mesquite bushes you see all over West Texas,” Cox said. “When did they come along? Growing up, I heard that story that they were not native to West Texas. You look at really old photos of the area, the landscape seems so much more clean and open than it does now in many places, where it's totally polluted by mesquite.”

It's been called “the devil with roots” – the thorny bane of cattle, horses and cowha...