Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

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...

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...

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 y...

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 t

Doing an episode about desert broom (Baccharis sarothroides) is a November tradition. And, so is singing a verse of an old hymn that I like to fool around with by.changing nouns and pronouns. The melody of the song has had quite a journey from a Dutch folk song of the early 1600s to the early 1800s when Eduard Kremser wrote the hymn using the folk song melody. The hymn is known as the Kremser and starts with the line “We gather together.” I so love the line in the song, “the wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.” Hello! What you…

Seeing persimmons in an abandoned orchard at the Chiricahua National Monument pulled up a childhood memory and later I found myself pulling books off shelves and reading about the genus Diospyros and some of the worldwide species. With all my new knowledge I probably could have rattled on for several more minutes in this episode. Luckily for all, I contained myself, but you may want to look up some of the different species of Diospyros and their fascinating histories. The American persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, is found from Connecticut, south to Florida, and west to Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma. It’s fo...

When I was making the “dried seed to collect for display” list for you I should have said “screwbean mesquite beans”, not “seed,” but the twisty twirly clusters of beans that hold the seed. You probably already have those on a shelf, right? Also, can you believe I forgot wild cotton, Gossypium thurberi? Talk about cool pods! Well, to be continued. Hey, the photos are mine. That is some dry Dysphania graveolens that my partner, lover, significant other, Marian put in a gourd vase. I love the pine needle collar she wove around the top of that gourd.  

Out in the borderlands near me I find mariola (Parthenium incanum) on the gravelly slopes and plains of the Desert Grassland and Chihuahuan Desert. I love finding it mixed in with so other desert plant species. In the photos below you can see evidence of that kind of fun mixture…a plant geek’s delight! Hey, if you’re out cruising the Sulphur Springs Valley in the winter you’re gonna find cranes out in fields or in the sky during the morning and in the afternoon, but listen, between eleven-ish and two-ish they’re back hanging out at their roosting s...

The photos are mine of Verbesina encelioides. Although it’s quite pretty, “a common weed of roadsides and waste places.”* *Kearney and Peebles, Arizona Flora

This episode is about a fall blooming plant called Ageratina herbacea. Ageratina means a small or smaller Ageratum… another beautiful blooming plant….herbacea means herbaceous. Duh. It’s probably just me, but I think ageratina makes for a nice common name. How about fragrant ageratina? Oh yeah. The photos are mine.

I was looking though some old notes of episodes and realized that I have talked about coral bells (Heuchera sanguinea) many times over the years. Like a favorite trail or dirt road I keep coming back to it. There are six species of Heuchera found in Arizona and they’re among the 40 to 50 species found in North America, not to mention numerous cultivars. The photos are mine and taken along the trail that my partner, lover and significant other and I keep coming back to.

Both jackass clover (Wislizenia refracta) and clammy weed (Polanisia dodecandra) are in the Cleome family Cleomaceae, having left the caper family Capparaceae due to DNA analysis. A crime is solved! But listen, many of the plants in Cleomaceae can be quite aromatic or foetid smelling. Both jackass clover and clammy weed live up to that description and it’s your choice. By the way, I want you to know that I showed great restraint in not shouting jackass several times during this episode. I’ve matured over the years. The photos are mine of the flowers of both species jabbered abou...

Hummingbird trumpet (Epilobium canum) is a favorite late summer and fall wildflower in the wild or in a nursery. Well, in the wild is wonderful, but then get one for your personal habitat to remind you of the wild one you saw. The photos are mine.  

Though I didn’t talk about it in this episode, some of the great things about gathering acorns out in habitat are the encounters with wild creatures. Ms. Mesquitey and I have some great oak and wildlife stories that include, bears, deer, turkeys, javelinas, porcupines, jays, pigeons, woodpeckers, caterpillars. Hang out by an oak and you will be surrounded by life from the bottom to the top. Oaks are trees of life. I love growing them. The photos are mine of acorns and some very young Arizona white oaks (Quercus arizonica)

I walk by a native mulberry every day when I go to my office, the Books and Bones Retreat. I planted that Morus microphylla years ago and actually grew it from seed we had collected. That may be the subliminal reason I felt the need to talk about mulberry trees in this episode. I don’t think I did all the mulberry species justice and I will no doubt hear from my botanist horticulturist son-in-law Jared who is a big fan of mulberry species and selections. That’ll be cool. The photos are mine of the fruit and the variable leav...

The genus Allium has had quite a taxonomic journey and is at this time (stay tuned!) in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, where it had once been, so welcome back Allium. There are over 400 species of Allium native to the Northern Hemisphere. Arizona has 13 of those and nodding onion, Allium cernuum is one of them. Yay! Oh, And I know, I know, it’s unlikely that an onion will usurp the rose as the national plant of the United States. Allow me to dream. The photos are mine.

I like this paragraph from The Vascular Plants of the Gila Wilderness: “Psacalium decompositum is a distinctive plant that apparently reaches its most northern distribution here in New Mexico and Arizona. The mainly basal leaves are highly dissected with linear ultimate segments, and are quite large. The inflorescence is scapose and two to three feet tall. Psacalium decompositum is found in openings in the Ponderosa Pine forest.” What they said! By the way, in your favorite old flora or field guide this plant may be found under the genus Cacalia. Oh, and the botanists that changed the genus to Psacalium…

Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) makes up for its lack of milky sap with the copious amount of nectar found in the flowers. Stand back and let the pollinators in! The photos are mine of the “clusters of golden yellow flowers” and taken on the day described in this episode.