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 spots. The White Water…

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 about in…

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 leaves of…

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.  

The better common name for Terrapene ornata luteola is the ornate box turtle. The name desert box turtle is old like me….not Miocene old…maybe early Holocene. Hey, I recently read some nice essays about shrines in the borderlands written by the Tucson desert rat and artist Linda Victoria. Below is a link to her writing. https://substack.com/@lacorua The photos are mine. Oh, and I’ve talked about box turtles before, so here is a link to another episode: Turtles, Dogs, Plants  

Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa) is common around our little homestead and beyond. There are even thickets of it all along the banks of the Ol’ Guajolote. It tends to spread by roots to create those thickets and they bind the soil along the creek. Oh, and when this native shrub is in bloom and plume, it’s gorgeous. The photos are mine.

I meant to talk a little more about the leaves of Physocarpus monogynus. I did say that they resemble the leaves of a currant or a raspberry…they have a toothy or crenate margin, but not only are they are crenate, they are doubly crenate. The teeth have teeth. So when you find this beautiful shrub in a coniferous forest you can say to anyone who will listen, “Look at those doubly crenate leaves.” You are cool! And, what is it about the common name mountain nine bark that strikes a chord with me? It sounds so wild and wonderful. “Call…

This poem was originally written as part of the 2012 poetic inventory of the Saguaro National Monument East. Writers, poets and at least one radio personality drew a species name from a hat and were asked to submit a poem. This was my contribution. The photos are mine.

Squash bees are out early in the morning and moving pollen around well before honey bees even arrive. Research done by the Department of Agriculture found that squash bees “are largely responsible for the production of cultivated squash across North America and much of the Americas.” That is very cool, right? I like buffalo gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima) and I haven’t talked about it in many years, so this was fun. If you were to do a little homework you’d find that there has been a lot of research on both the seed of the gourd and also of the tuberous…

It was a recent morning of watching mud daubers come and go through our barn door that reminded me of the small wonderful things that happen around us daily. So I went to the Books and Bones Retreat and started a list of some small wonders I notice around our place and beyond, And, I know that we all have small wonders happening in our yards or parks and favorite hiking trails. Maybe make a list? Yeah, do that. Oh, ironically the mud daubers didn’t make the list I shared with you…too excited about so many other small wonders I…

  Looking at storms out across the land from our little homestead near the Ol’ Guajolote.

It was Linnaeus that created the name Mimosa from the Greek: mimos for mime and the suffix osa for resembling. As to the plant jabbered about in this episode, it was Asa Gray that named the species grahamii to honor James Graham and probably at William Emory’s suggestion…fellow soldier surveyors in the field. The photos are mine.