Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

I’m pretty sure when I first learned heartleaf goldeneye it was a Viguiera and the same with the showy annual called longleaf false goldeneye. But hey, some molecular botany in 2011 led to changes and a lot of Viguiera species were assigned to different genera. And soo, the annual and very showy longleaf false goldeneye became Heliomeris and heartleaf goldeneye, the star of this episode joined the...

Repercussions from the environmental, the sociological, the cultural and spiritual damage done by the building of the border wall will haunt us for a very long time. Many thanks and so much gratitude to all the people who have fought and continue the resistance to the madness. And a personal “Hey!” to Kate Scott in Lochiel. Thanks to Max Licher for use of his cottonwood photo from SEINet. A great...

Threadleaf groundsel (Senecio flaccidus var. flaccidus) is really an attractive shrub with its grey foliage and yellow flowers. The variety, S. flaccidus var. monoensis, is quite nice as well with its green foliage and yellow flowers. We’ve found that variety growing in the desert and low hills near Fort Bowie National Historic Site out in Cochise County. I meant to mention in this ramble that in...

Hummingbird trumpet (Epilobium canum) is one of my favorite late summer into fall wildflowers to see in the wild. And, in the wild is wonderful, but this wildflower can be found in nurseries too, so get one for your personal habitat to remind you of those wild plants you saw. Yay! The photos are mine and taken on a recent trip into a nearby woodland. I love the shot with the water running through...

Here are some clarifications…the scientific name for the long-nosed leopard is Gambelia wislizenii honoring the naturalist of the 1800s William Gambel and Friedrich Wislizenus, an army engineer and plant collector also of the 1800s. I’m surprised that there is no alluding to the leopard like spots on the body, or the long nose, or the very long round tail. It’s not like those two fellows don’t hav...

Well, alleluia, it’s feeling “fallish!” Okay, lemme see…the photos are mine of a box turtle track (see the plastron print?), a snake track with the ventral scutes, nicely landscaped kangaroo rat mounds and a Wright’s buckwheat (Eriogonum wrightii). Oh, and I forgot to tell you that the kangaroo rat I so love…well, they’re all lovable, but the large banner tailed kangaroo rat (Dipodomys spectabilis...

Cliffrose has had quite a few botanical names. Remember when the botanical was Cowania mexicana var. stansburiana? Okay, I’m old. The current botanical name is, at least for the time being, Purshia stansburyana. Cliffrose is a beautiful and tough native shrub. And, it is so fragrant that usually you smell it before you see it. “What’s that sweet smell? Oh, look a flowering cliffrose!” The photos a...

It’s true that every year I get excited about fall blooming plants in the Aster family (Asteraceae) and proclaim that there should be a festival to celebrate these wonderful fall bloomers. How fortuitous to come across clumps of Gregg’s mistflower (Conoclinum dissectum) on a fall day out in the desert scrub. What a marvelous plant! And by the way, its botanical name used to be Eupatorium greggii a...

Here is the full botanical name of spreading snake herb: Dyschoriste schiedeana var. decumbens. Someone (Asa Gray?) had fun putting the Greek words together to form the genus meaning difficult to separate, referring to “ the valves of the capsules which adhere tightly to each other.” The specific epithet honors the German physician and botanist Christian Julius Wilhelm Schiede of the early 1800s (...

I’m pretty sure I first encountered the plant called mala mujer in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson over 30 years ago. And I’m also pretty sure that I turned that encounter into an episode of Growing Native and I mispronounced the genus Cnidoscolus. “The C is silent,” my botanist/horticulturist friend Gene Joeseph gently told me. Where would I be without friends like that, right? Well anyw...

In 1881 botanists John and Sara Lemmon were collecting and botanizing in an area called Rucker Valley in the Chiricahua Mountains. And, they were staying at a military camp called Camp Rucker. I mention this because the old Camp Rucker site is very close to where Ms. Mesquitey and I were hanging out. I was so excited …well, I still am… to identify the same buttercup that John and Sara collected ov...

The first time I saw and identified crimson sage (Salvia henryi) was years ago just outside Paradise in the Chiricahua Mountains. ..”just outside Paradise” is a wonderful line… anyway, Marian and I were checking out a native mulberry when we saw the bright red flowers of crimson sage on the same hillside. Later I learned later that John and Sara Lemmon collected it in the Chiricahua Mountains in 1...

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...

An episode written and recorded amidst the cluttered space that I call “books and bones.” Asclepias involucrata has a wide range in the southwestern US and into Mexico. I’m thinking It would be a fun addition to a wildflower pollinator garden, so ask about it at your favorite native plant nursery. Queen butterflies and their caterpillars certainly thought it was a nice addition to my hoop house. M...

Arizona white oak is Quercus arizonica. I’ve come across some magnificent ones over the last 30 years of living near them. We planted a few in our yard as well, grown from collected acorns. Those oaks have stories too. The photos are mine of some of my clutter and that’s Ms. Mesquitey’s hand on the trunk of the huge white oak talked about in this episode.

The photo is mine and taken from our place looking west toward the Dragoons. I call the photo, “Come to Poppa.”

I first learned this snake as the western hog-nosed snake (Heterodon nasicus). It’s now called the Mexican hog-nosed snake (H. kennerlyi). And this is neat, well at least for me; a snake of my Kentucky youth was the eastern hog-nosed snake (Heterodon platirhinos). It has all the same crazy wonderful behavior as our borderlands species. Back in those olden days I remember folks called it puff adder...

Spotting Wyoming paintbrush (Castilleja linariifolia) with those bright red inflorescences out on that gravelly plain in a thicket of Apache plume was so cool.  Our “what’s going on quest” was a success. Paintbrush is what’s going on! The photos are mine. Do you see the beaks? Pretty cool.      

The distinctive odor of canyon ragweed (Ambrosia ambrosioides) is so Sonoran Desert. Hey, burs in your flip flops is a very Sonoran Desert thing too and some of those burs could be from kissing cousin Ambrosia deltoidea. Oh, I forgot to mention that canyon ragweed has medicinal uses, so you may want to look up its uses. So Sonoran Desert! And the plant list that I was perusing and enjoying was for...

This episode of Growing Native is a rambling reminiscence about amphibians and reptiles. With the monsoon starting up here in the borderlands I think we’re going to be seeing some of those. Yay! The photos are mine. That’s a pile of wonderful field guides. I love the old 1966 Peterson Field by Robert Stebbins. The western duded up Sonoran Desert Toad was the logo of the 1970s Tucson band The Dusty...

The common name Firecracker Bush is a good one for Bouvardia ternifolia with its clusters of glowing scarlet flowers that look like small floral explosions, but it can also be one of the many common names for the plant Russelia equisetiformis. Yikes! Sooo, how about the combination of the flower color and the botanical to give  us Scarlet Bouvardia. That’s a pretty cool common name! And, I forgot...

Some spring time banter about the soaptree yuccas (Yucca elata) and pale wolfberry plants (Lycium pallidum) found in the scruffy grassland surrounding our home near the banks of the Ol’ Guajolote. The photos are mine.  

The little urban park in Tucson where part of this episode takes place has always been nice renewal before hitting the road for the two hour trip home. The rocky hillside described is in the Dragoon Mountains and is pretty good for renewal as well. Shindaggers (Agave schottii) have yellow flowers on a four to five foot tall stalk. It’s quite striking. Oh, and I said that shindaggers sucker and tha...

It’s funny how irritable those relic Parry penstemons from an old roadside hydro seed make me. For goodness sake, why weren’t more regional seeds used in that revegetation job? Short diatribe over. Penstemon species are fun to grow in your personal habitat and seed or plants are readily available. One way or the other you’ll get penstemon volunteers as well. Yay! If you are a beardtongue geek, I r...

Fans of borderlands’ flora will tell you there is nothing better than spotting an interesting plant out the window of your truck as you rumble by and shouting, “What was that? Wait, stop, pull over!” A drive-by turns into a stop and go. The sweetbush (Bebbia juncea) that Marian and I saw on the day described in this episode was in rocky desert with lots of mesquite, acacia, tar bush and sumac. Swe...