Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey Petey Mesquitey

The streams and pools of the Swisshelm, Chiricahua, Mule, Pedregosa, Perilla and Peloncillo mountains are part of the Rio Yaqui Drainage. Those water courses drain toward Sonora and the Rio Yaqui and they have or used to have the same eight species of fish that are found in that river. The Mexican stoneroller is one of those eight species and I owe that fish big time for helping cure the blues. So yay, for cool native fish found in the borderlands of southeastern Arizona! The photos are mine.

I love desert ironwood trees….love peering under them to see the plants they’re nursing …love the purple and white flowers and seed pods that follow… never minded the spiny branches tugging at my clothing and sometimes drawing blood… and, love the desert litter beneath them. The desert ironwood is a beautiful tree…yeah, it is! The photos are mine

The first time I identified crimson sage (Salvia henryi) was years ago just outside Paradise in the Chiricahua Mountains. Marian and I were checking out a native mulberry when we saw the bright red flowers on the same hillside. That’s pretty cool, because I learned later that John and Sara Lemmon collected it in the Chiricahuas in 1882. The Lemmons sent their plant collections back east to Asa Gray for identification and naming. It was Gray who named the species henryi after the botanist Augustine Henry who collected and botanized in China. Jeez, talk about an argument for species names…

False Solomon’s seal was formerly in the family Liliaceae, but is now in Asparagaceae. There are 2 subspecies of Maianthemum racemosum. The subspecies out here in the mountainous forests of the western U.S. is amplexicaule, so it reads like this: Maianthemum racemosum subsp. amplexicaule. Between the 2 subspecies false Soloman’s seal can be found all over North America…all over…and into a bit of northern Mexico. So wherever you are, search the rich damp soil of the mountain forest under story. Doesn’t “rich damp soil” sound glorious? It almost makes me want to create a forest garden with that kind of…

Asclepias asperula is found beyond the borderlands around the Southwestern United States and into Northern Mexico. My explanation of the common name antelope horns being the result of drug use wasn’t fair. At one point the species name for this milkweed was capricornu from Latin meaning goat horn. And here is a good quote from I forget who (drug use), “the common name Antelope Horns is reflective of the maturing seed pods which begin to curve as they grow and soon resemble antelope horns.” Sooo, antelope horns or inmortál, your choice, but always Asclepias asperula. Whenever we see this milkweed…

A story about how friends always save the day. Alleluia. Photo credit: Marian