Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

If it wasn’t for the Gadsden Purchase, coral bean or Erythrina flabelliformis wouldn’t be found in southeastern Arizona or southwestern New Mexico and so we are in its northern most range out of Mexico. It has so much to love…amazing bright red flowers on naked branches followed by fan shape green leaves (flabelliformis!) and then the long pods that dry and dehisce and dangle to display the red seed. Seed so hard that I use a file or grinding wheel to break the seed coat so it’ll germinate. It’s in the pea family Fabaceae and the pea family rocks the…

Ms. Mesquitey and I like the idea of regional crayons. The colors of your home place, of your own biotic community. When we saw the fairy dusters (Calliandra eriophylla) blooming on that rocky slope we realized that maybe it would need a few different crayons. Yay! I don’t know it this interests you, but fairy duster is pretty easy to grow from seed. You just need to get the little bean pods before they snap open and send seed shooting across the desert where native critters eat them. Oh dear! But hey, if you don’t feel like gathering and germinating…

Brittlebush, (Encelia farinosa) loves rocky hillsides and gravelly desert. And though this native shrub has a large range showing up in the Mojave and Great Basin Deserts, for me the bright yellow flowers atop the silvery foliage shout, “Sonoran Desert!” If you’re interested in ethnobotany (why wouldn’t you be?) this is a good plant to add to your journal with its many uses, from chewing gum to incense. And listen, native plant nurseries grow and sell this wonderful wide ranging native, so plant or 2 or 3 in your personal habitat to remind you that the desert is beautiful. Yeah…

A spring wildflower in the primrose family Onagraceae, Oenothera primiveris is always a delightful surprise in our yard. And thank you Carl Linnaeus for the confusing generic name Oenothera. Jeez! I’ve come across quite a few interpretations of the meaning and I liked this sentence I found in my search; “It’s etymology is uncertain.” I’ll say! I did like the meaning I found in California Flora by Phillip Munz and David Keck and that was my source, but perhaps a seance and chat with Carl would resolve the uncertainty. The photos of the primrose are mine and taken around our…

I was wondering if I talk about dock (Rumex hymenosepalus) every spring, so I looked though my notes. Well, not every spring, but almost. If you’re interested in Rumex in an ethnobotanical sorta way, here is a good place to start your research: Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert by Wendy Hodgson. The photos are mine. I didn’t have a good pic of the red stalk shooting out of the large wavy green leaves, so I recommend the site SEINet for some great photos and more good plant info. Now you know.

When I sat down to put this episode together I thought it was going to be about the flatheaded wood borers I find when I’m splitting fire wood. Somewhere after talking about sauntering around our homestead I wandered off to another topic. Did I even mention wood borers? So gray fox skull it is. I’ll save flatheaded wood borers for another time. Stay tuned! Gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) have a large range in North America with much of it shared with the red fox (Vulpes vulpes). Red foxes don’t occur in Arizona…well, maybe up along the northern border…so gray foxes…

The photos are mine and taken in my office, Books and Bones.