When we first moved out to Cochise County we were so lucky to have a few springs with abundant Mexican poppy (Eschscholzia mexicana) displays. Distant hills and nearby fields glowed golden with a kazillion blooming poppies. Over the years, dry winters made those floriferous springs less common, but in 2020 there was an incredible wildflower display all around us. I remember standing out in some rolling hills at the base of the Pinaleño Mountains and shouting out plant names…well, at least the ones I could remember… it was that day we saw creamcups (or cream cups, your choice) in the wildflower mix. We even came across some pure stands of Platystemon californicus. Yay! Oh for goodness sake, I forgot to mention that creamcups’ flowers are white, but the photos show that!  Now you know. Anyway, here’s hoping we get a floriferous spring thanks to winter rain and snow. The photos are mine.

Happy New Year!

I could be over thinking the feeling I got when I saw that lone coati from the now named coati mundi bluff, but it was wonderful. The other flora and fauna mentioned in this episode make me feel awfully good. I’ll leave it at that and hope you have plants or critters that make you very happy as well and that 2023 is a year full of wild contentment. Hmm, I’m missing a kangaroo rat photo, but all the photos are mine. Box turtles visit our back yard all summer and that’s Ms. Mesquitey admiring a Toumey oak.

The botanical name of our 3 needle per fascicle (bundle) Chihuahuan pine is Pinus leiophylla var. chihuahuana. Further south into Mexico where the 5 needle version occurs it becomes Pinus leiophylla var. leiophylla. Some botanists, by the way, list the variety as a subspecies. Well, either way it’s really a neat native pine here in the borderlands. The photos are mine and taken in the Chiricahua Mountains where we were wandering around looking for a Christmas tree. Below is a photo of large sprout coming off a pine trunk. It was an area that burned during the 2011 Horseshoe Two Fire and some of the surviving fire damaged trees put out large crown-like sprouts. That’s fascinating and unusual for a pine species. And now you know.

I grew and sold California buckthorn for several years. Early on I sold it wholesale to other nurseries, but I also sold it at Farmers Markets in Cochise County. Apparently I’m a terrible plant promoter and the plant never really got popular, at least in my circles. It’s ironic because in California there are some named cultivars (nativars) sold in nurseries. Anyway, you should check with your favorite native plant nursery to see if they grow it. We’ve had some nice specimens over the years at our little homestead and thanks to birds we’ve had a couple volunteers pop up around the place. The photos are of a volunteer growing next to our barn. I love it! (That’s a sotol stalk in the background.) And listen, don’t go grinding up the seed of Frangula californica to make a coffee substitute. It would be dreadful and make you feel very bad…guaranteed. There are certainly other medicinal uses and you may also want to look up California buckthorn’s northwest relative Frangula purshiana or cascara sagrada. Now you know. The photos are mine. I already said that.

Leslie Newton Goodding had a busy career. It was when he worked for the U. S. Department of Agriculture that he collected the type specimen for the willow jabbered about in this episode. It was the American botanist Carleton Roy Ball, a Salix specialist (geek), who honored Goodding with the species name. One of the things that caught my attention when reading about Leslie Goodding was that at some point he taught High School in Bisbee, as well as Benson. I bet those teaching gigs supported his plant explorations around southern Arizona. There are a bunch of Salix spp. in Arizona. My Arizona Flora (1960) lists 16 species and I get a kick out of a more current reference that says “nearly 20 species.” So who knows? I do know that Goodding willow is the most common willow in the southwest and found along streams, meadows, ponds, and wet places below 7,500 ft. The photos are mine of Salix gooddingii by a pond and in glorious fall foliage.

It was the American botanist Soreno Watson, that named the onion collected in Tanner’s Canyon of the Huachuca Mountains to honor Sara Plummer Lemmon. He made no mistake who it honored by using her maiden name, Allium plummerae. Common names of this borderlands native are Tanner’s Canyon onion, Plummer’s onion or around our place we call it Sara’s onion. I thought I had some photos of Sara’s onion (Allium plummerae) taken at Onion Saddle in the Chiricahuas, but I couldn’t find them. (Why do I think they are 35 mm slides?) Instead I offer the cover of the book The Forgotten Botanist by Wynne Brown. It’s recommended reading.

After reading the section about the canyon tree frog (Hyla arenicolor) in my old Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians by Robert Stebbins, I had to read it aloud to you. Doesn’t it just make you want to get out and find canyon tree frogs? Stebbins not only wrote the field guide, but did all the illustrations as well. And if your interest is piqued, there is an updated 2018 edition. Two other valuable field guides for us herpers, expert and otherwise. (I’m the latter) A Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptile in Arizona, Holycross, Brennan, Babb. This one rides in our truck. Arizona’s Amphibians and Reptiles, A Natural History and Field Guide, John C, Murphy and others This one I pull off the shelf when I get home. Kids, collect the whole set! The photos are mine.

I guess to truly be a fandango I would need a partner and maybe some castanets, but the loose rock fandango can get pretty elaborate with elements of modern dance, hokey pokey, ballet and of course, some jazz hands thrown into the mix. The expression “dance like no one is watching’’ comes to mind and I certainly hope so. The photos are mine. I thought you’d like to see the fraction of the Galiuro Mountains (Galuros!) I poke around in. Shin daggers are Agave schottii and the photo is of a very small clump. Multiply those by several hundred thousand and you get an idea of what you’re hiking in on many mesas and slopes. Yikes and ouch! But hey, walking slowly and observing the flora, fauna, geology and distant vistas is the most wonderful thing. Life is beautiful. Yeah, it is.

It’s fun to have favorite plants to look for on excursions into the hills. Looking back at photos and my notes, we have been checking on this particular population of Lemmon’s milkweed for a few years. I’m guessing that as long as we’re in the area, we’ll continue to stop by for a visit. And yes, I did grab a couple seed pods (follicles) from a plant. Stay tuned. Botanical names of plants are usually followed by the name of who named it…the author citation. The genus Asclepias is followed by an L. That’s Linnaeus. And if one looked through the numerous species names (200 plus), after tuberosa you see the citation L. Someone sent Linnaeus a dry specimen of a North American milkweed and Carl named it. So he is cited for both the genus Asclepias and the species tuberosa. But listen, it was the famous American botanist of the 1800s, Asa Gray that honored the husband wife botanists John and Sara Lemmon with the name lemmonii, for the species jabbered about in this episode, Asclepias lemmonii. Yay! The photos are mine.