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.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago I learned the scientific name of this butterfly as Adelpha bredowii. Then the sister butterfly of the Arizona woodlands got listed as Adelpha bredowii ssp. eulalia. Now…ta da…the Arizona Sister is Adelpha eulalia. Yay! And, eulalia does not mean “you go girl.” The specific epithet is from the Greek: eu means good and lalia means conversation, so…a good conversationalist or well spoken. Who knew? The photos are mine. They’re not great and I’m pretty sure I some have better ones, but suspect they are slides sitting in an old Carousel Projector tray (speaking of twenty-five…

The clearing of land, of biotic communities, feels like a southern Arizona affliction doesn’t it? ” We need a housing development, we need a mine, we need a wall and the desert is in the way.” Jeez… Arizona walnut (Juglans major) is the only native species of walnut in Arizona. The species J. microcarpa is not that far way to the east in New Mexico and Texas. And, there are rumors of little walnut (J. microcarpa) being found in Arizona. That would be cool, but I dunno. I’ll keep you posted. Oh, and of course Juglans major and J. microcarpa…

After I produced this episode, Marian (Ms. Mesquitey) and I were driving in the desert outside Bisbee, AZ marveling at the silhouettes of viscid acacia (Vachellia vernicosa) and I realized I had written and jabbered about winter silhouettes of many deciduous trees and shrubs several times in the past… ahem, like every winter for over 30 years. Oh well, the outlines of naked branches against a borderland sky are glorious. The photos are mine of desert willows (Chilopsis linearis) very near our home.

I love desert honeysuckle (Anisacanthus thurberi). It’s a favorite plant and I think that’s because of seeing it growing and flowering in that arroyo along the road to Gates Pass way back in the olden days. My gosh doesn’t a drive to the Sonoran Desert through Gates Pass sound like fun. I haven’t done that in many years. Please don’t tell me there are strip malls all the way there. That would call for a lot more flora and fauna medication. Maybe that’s a good thing…the meds, not the malls. The photos are mine and taken at our home where…

The photos are mine and taken at our home.

I mention that the US Soil Conservation Service introduced and used Pentzia incana for erosion control back in the 1930s. And, I remembered that in 1980 at my first nursery gig, karoo bush was in the horticulture trade. Back then I thought that it was a pretty plant. Well, it is a pretty plant, but hello, if it spreads from seed into native habitat then that’s not good. Go native, Mister Mesquitey! Okay, okay, I will, er, I did. The photos are mine and taken the day described. I snapped them quickly to remind me to look up Pentzia when…

The Dainty Sulfur (Nathalis iole) flies year round all over Arizona, especially on mild days. The western pygmy blue (Brefidium exile) is the smallest butterfly in North America. It’s found flying year round as well, all over the Borderlands and beyond. The photos are mine. The flowers are a zany colorful selection of Gomphrena globosa.

Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is found from central California, up through the Pacific Northwest, throughout the Rockies (variety glauca) and southward down into our sky islands. We are so lucky to have it as a part of the mixed coniferous forests in the mountains of the borderlands. What a magnificent tree! The photo is mine (tripod, shutter timer, running back and forth) of me and Marian (Ms. Mesquitey!) and our magnificent tree, taken just before we headed down the mountain to have lunch in a woodland with some Mexican jays.

I’ve written a few Growing Native episodes about sycamore trees over the years. There is just something about these large riparian trees. Oh, and if I mention sycamore trees in a conversation with friends I get wonderful sycamore stories. Yup, there is just something about these trees. It is interesting, by the way, that the sycamores described In this episode are out on that gravelly plain. They gotta have their feet in water and it will be interesting to see how they’re going to fare through drought and the not too far away big agriculture. Hey, I’ll keep you posted,…

In the summer it’s easy to spot a stand of horsetail milkweed (Asclepias subverticillata) along the side of the road with its slender leafed stems (almost whorled) and white flowering umbels, but also because of the butterflies that flutter out of the stand as you drive by. Maybe a good plant in a butterfly garden? Hello? The photos are mine: an open milkweed pod (follicle) and some sandhill cranes.

I remember now that I had recorded an episode about bush muhly (Muhlenbergia porteri) several years ago, so it must have been time to revisit this beautiful native grass. From late summer into the fall this tangled grassy mound sets seed and the stems change color. I said light purple in this show, but I’m thinking pink might be a better color description. How about reddish? I dunno. I’m pretty poor with colors, so check out the photos below. There are over forty species of Muhlys in Arizona and around the southwest. And, many of those species are in the…