Sunday, June 29, 2014

Shrubby Yellow Potentilla


Weather: Yesterday was the first afternoon in months when the afternoon air was still; the night before more Russian thistles blew in; last rain 6/13/14.

What’s blooming in the area: Catalpa, Dr Huey and hybrid roses, yellow potentilla, silver lace vine, lilies, daylily, red hot poker, hollyhock, datura, Jupiter’s beard, bouncing Bess, pink evening primrose, alfalfa, sweet pea, purple-flowered salvia, yellow yarrow.

Beyond the walls and fences: Tamarix, alfilerillo, tumble mustard, tufted white evening primrose, scarlet bee blossom, velvetweed, purple mat flower, fern leaf globemallow, pink and white bindweed, showy milkweed, amaranth, Hopi tea, goat’s beard, native and common dandelions, plains paper flowers.

In my yard, looking east: Maltese cross, Bath pinks, snow-in-summer, baby’s breath, pink-flowered salvia, winecup mallow, coral bell.

Looking south: Betty Prior, Fairy and rugosa roses.

Looking west: Johnson’s Blue geranium, Rumanian sage, catmint, blue flax, white mullein, Shasta daisy.

Looking north: Coral beard tongue, butterfly milkweed, golden spur columbine, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis.

In the open, along the drive: Dutch white clover, California poppy, larkspur, white yarrow.

Bedding plants: Pansies, snapdragon, sweet alyssum, blue salvia, moss rose, French marigold.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, geckos, gold finch and other small birds, grasshoppers, small black ants, wasps.

Flying insects flit above the catalpa flowers in mid-morning, but never seem to land.


Weekly update: One of the niggling mysteries is what happens to all those plants you see in the garden centers in the spring. The only ones I see blooming in yards are roses and Russian sages.

Shrubby yellow-flowered potentillas appear every year, but don’t sell until end of season clearances. One could attribute the lack of sales to self-fulfilling expectations: people only buy what they see blooming in their neighbors’ yards.

One summer around 1998 one of the local hardware stores built a raised flower bed by the front road and put out some of its remaining shrubs. The potentilla, probably a dwarfed variety, bloomed every summer until the state highway department destroyed the bed when it was widening the road in 2011.


Despite this demonstration of success, I’ve only seen a few shrubs growing in the village, usually planted as specimens.

My luck has been variable. When I moved to Michigan in 1985, I bought nine bare root Potentilla fruticosa ‘Jackmanii’ from a local nursery. Five survived. The members of the rose family grew about three feet tall and bloomed reliably.


When I bought more a few years later to replace the ones that died, they too succumbed.

I tried shrubby cinquefoils a few times in New Mexico, but none made it through the first summer’s heat.

Last year I thought of them again. I had planted a slope with German iris and red hot pokers. For some reason, the pokers died in the winter of 2012-2013. I hadn’t liked them enough to replace them, and was looking for something I could see from a distance.


My impulse formed late in the planting season. I scoured nurseries in mid-June. Four Goldfinger were back in a corner of the local hardware where plants they forgot to water were limping on. I found four Jackmanii in an Albuquerque nursery where they probably had been growing in pots outdoors for several seasons. The other three were in ideal condition in an Albuquerque greenhouse.

The greenhouse plants and one of the Jackmanii lost their leaves in August and didn’t come back this spring. The other seven, which had been hardened through benign neglect, are producing flowers clusters at the ends of their stems. They’re still only about a foot high, but appear to be flourishing.


What finally motivated me to try the russet-barked shrubs again were the forest fires of 2012. By mid-June, temperatures had risen and the air was attacking my sinuses. I took refuge in my air-conditioned car to drive in the only direction there was no smoke, north.

On my way back from Angel Fire, I pulled over just after I had crested the 9,101 foot Palo Flechado Pass. I’d spotted flowers blooming under tall, pine trees on the north, uphill side. When I got out, I saw a low purple plant, some low fleabanes, western yarrow, a blue beardtongue, another plant with purple bells arranged on a tall stem and something white with five petaled single flowers at the ends of narrow stems.

I crossed the road to discover the stream which flowed through the valley in the slope. Scattered in the grass were some low potentilla shrubs. I didn’t cross the barbed wire to get a close look. Although they resembled the cultivated plants, I suspect they were Potentilla pulcherrima. The similar yellow-flowered species grows in mountain meadows in the Ponderosa zone.


Water must be the key to their success. While the dry conditioning probably was critical for my shrubs’ survival, the very wet fall helped form the growth that’s producing this year’s five-petaled flowers.

That same moisture revived the needle grass growing on the road side of the slope. It’s so tall, I can see nothing through the tall, paper colored stems. On the other side of the slope, the golden spur columbine have grown so dense, I can’t see the daylilies at their feet. I finally succeeded again with potentillas, but I have to hunt to see them.


Notes:
Tierney, Gail D. Roadside Plants of Northern New Mexico, 1983.

Wooton, Elmer Otis and Paul Carpenter Standley. Flora of New Mexico, 1915.

Photographs:
1. Jackmani potentilla flower, my yard, 29 June 2014.
2. Jackmani flower cluster, my yard, 29 June 2014.
3. Goldfinger terminal flowers, my yard, 29 June 2014.
4. Jackmani in Michigan, 30 July 1988.
5. Jackmani bud stem, 29 June 2014.
6. Jackmani bud cluster, 29 June 2014.
7. Potentilla in meadow, Palo Flechado Pass, 18 June 2012.


8. Goldfinger hidden by needle grass, golden spur columbine and blanket flowers, 29 June 2014.
9. Potentilla, Palo Flechado Pass, 18 June 2012.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Blue Salvia


Weather: Strong winds developed most afternoons; last rain 6/13/14.

What’s blooming in the area: Catalpa, Dr Huey and hybrid roses, yellow potentilla, silver lace vine, weeping yucca, daylily, red hot poker, hollyhock, datura, larkspur, Jupiter’s beard, bouncing Bess, golden spur columbine, pink evening primrose, alfalfa, sweet pea, purple-flowered salvia, Shasta daisy, yellow yarrow.

Beyond the walls and fences: Tamarix, alfilerillo, tumble mustard, tufted white evening primrose, scarlet bee blossom, velvetweed, purple mat flower, fern leaf globemallow, oxalis, pink and white bindweed, showy milkweed, amaranth, Hopi tea, goat’s beard, native and common dandelions, plains paper flowers.

In my yard, looking east: Maltese cross, Bath pinks, snow-in-summer, baby’s breath, pink-flowered salvia, winecup mallow, coral bell.

Looking south: Betty Prior, Fairy and rugosa roses.

Looking west: Johnson’s Blue geranium, Rumanian sage, purple beardtongue, catmint, blue flax.

Looking north: Coral beard tongue, butterfly milkweed, Mexican hat, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis.

In the open, along the drive: Dutch white clover, California poppy, white yarrow.

Bedding plants: Pansies, snapdragon, sweet alyssum, blue salvia, French marigold.

Seeds: Scarlet flax putting out second leaves.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, geckos, small birds, grasshoppers, small black ants, wasps, hawk moths on golden spur columbine.


Weekly update: Blue salvia is one of those bedding plants that shows up in small numbers in nurseries that cater to the more advenureous gardeners. It never does well enough to develop a group of loyal consumers.

I discovered it when I was living in Michigan. The first year the Blue Victoria strain did well. After that, it was haphazard. I didn’t find it every spring, and the ones I did find didn’t do as well as had the first.


When I moved to New Mexico, I tried some Blue Victoria, but it didn’t do well enough to try again. I had no luck the one year I tried seeds.

Then, when I ordered seeds for blue flowered annuals to plant along the western edge of the new drive area, I reconsidered the species. Last summer, the seeds germinated and bloomed late. I couldn’t see the flowers from any distance and didn’t buy more seeds. They weren’t worth the effort.

I did buy four bedding plants this year, but so far they haven’t done much more than tread water. Again, I can only see the blue when I’m near it.


The winter was a an odd one, not cold enough to kill snapdragons, which are tender perennials. When I was weeding out grass and weeds to plant this year’s seeds by the drive, I left some shrubby plants that looked like "something." They weren’t larkspur or bachelor buttons, but they had the look of being something more than the usual weed in disguise.


Now, those orphans have turned into eight-inch high skirts of long, narrow leaves with long, square stems rising to blue-flowered racemes.

Salvia farinacea is a Texas and New Mexican wildflower that seems to be native to the rivers that flow south from the Llano Estancia.

George Bentham defined the species in 1833 from a specimen in the Hooker herbarium, probably the collection of William Jackson Hooker, curator of Kew Gardens. Bentham noted it was found in Texas along the Rio Guadalupe and the Rio Colorado. The one empties into the Gulf of Mexico through the San Antonio estuary. The other goes through Austin to arrive at Matagorda Bay.

V. Harvard, a surgeon with the US army, described the member of the mint family as ubiquitous in the prairies along the Rio Concho. That river eventually feeds a larger tributary of the Texas Colorado at San Angelo.

Later, Franklin Sumner Earle and his wife, Esther Skehan Earle, discovered the flowers on a rocky ledge 35 miles west of Roswell, New Mexico, in the drainage of the Berrendo river. He no doubt was searching for fungi, which were his special interest. The Berrendo flows into the Hondo, which flows into the Pecos.

Blue salvia has naturalized elsewhere where conditions are favorable. In North Carolina, it may live five years on the outer coastal plain. Elsewhere, it is an annual.

George DeLange has said it has been found in Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas. Some may be part of the same colony as the Texas plants, others may be exclaves.

I consider mine to be a fluke. While the tubular flowers are pollinated by medium and large sized bees, the seeds need cold, wet conditions to germinate. I doubt very much the woody roots will survive another winter or the flowers will produce seeds that will sprout.


Notes:
Bentham, George. Labiatarum Genera Et Species (1832).

Harvard, V. "Report on the Flora of Western and Southern Texas," United States National Museum, Proceedings, 1885.

DeLange, George. "Xeriscape Landscaping Plants For The Arizona Desert Environment," his website.

North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension. "Salvia farinacea," extension office website.

Rose, Joseph Nelson and Paul Carpenter Standley. Report on a Collection of Plants from the Pinacate Region of Sonora (1912), describes the Earle specimens.


Photographs: All taken around by drive, 22 June 2014

1. Close up of seed-grown plant; the common name, mealy cup sage, comes from the fur surrounding the flower.

2. Bedding plant; container was unlabeled so I don’t know the variety.

3. Species flowers at base of raceme on square stem.

4. Bedding plant growing under the peach tree; it’s much shorter than the species.

5. Two-year old species plant leaves.

6. Species plant growing near a fern bush.

7. Species buds on raceme.  This is what’s visible from a distance and in #5.

8.  Species flowers.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Bifenthrin


Weather: Hurricane Christina threatened the south western coast of México; we got high winds, some rain and a little hail; last rain 6/13/14.

What’s blooming in the area: Catalpa, Dr Huey, pink species and hybrid roses, yellow potentilla, silver lace vine, weeping yucca, daylily, red hot poker, chives, peony, datura, oriental poppy, larkspur, Jupiter’s beard, golden spur columbine, pink evening primrose, blue flax, alfalfa, sweet pea, purple-flowered salvia, Shasta daisy, yellow yarrow, Brome grass.

Beyond the walls and fences: Tamarix, alfilerillo, tumble mustard, tufted white evening primrose, scarlet bee blossom, purple mat flower, fern leaf globemallow, oxalis, pink and white bindweed, yellow sweet clover, showy milkweed, amaranth, Hopi tea, goat’s beard, native and common dandelions, plains paper flowers.

In my yard, looking east: Maltese cross, Bath pinks, snow-in-summer, baby’s breath, pink-flowered salvia, winecup mallow, coral bell.

Looking south: Betty Prior and Fairy roses.

Looking west: Johnson’s Blue geranium, Rumanian sage, purple beardtongue, catmint.

Looking north: Coral beard tongue, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis.

In the open, along the drive: Dutch white clover, California poppy, white yarrow.

Bedding plants: Pansies, snapdragon, sweet alyssum, blue salvia, French marigold.

Seeds: Morning glories and red flax have first leaves.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, geckos, small birds, cabbage butterfly, ladybugs, grasshoppers, harvester and small black ants, a few bees and a hawk moth on the Seven Hills Giant catmint.


Weekly update: DDT began as a chemistry student’s experiment in the 1870s. Othmar Zeidler was systematically testing permutations of bromobenzene for his dissertation at the University of Strasburg.

Dalmatian pyrethrum was the common insecticide then for killing mosquitoes and lice. Tanacetum cinerariaefolium grew in Mediterranean grasslands along the eastern Adriatic coast, but Japan became the major supplier for the United States.

With World War II, both Croatia and Japan became allied with enemy forces. The Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine was left with finding a substitute for pyrethrum.

Paul Hermann Müller had begun researching moth repellants for the J. R. Geigy Dye Factory in Basel in 1930s. He tested one promising compound, diphenyltrichlorethane, then searched the scientific literature for compounds with similar chemical structures. He found Zeidler’s work. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane not only was effective, but did not disappear. Pyrethrum was useful, but was destroyed by exposure to UV rays from the sun.

DDT dominated the pesticide market until Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962. She documented the ecological destruction caused by the persistence that had attracted Müller.

Chemical companies tasked their researchers with developing substitutes. They began with the work of Herman Staudinger and Lavoslav Ružièka. The German and Croatian scientists had identified the chemical structure of pyrethrin, the active agent in pyrethrum in 1924.

In the early 1960s, Michael Elliott of the Rothamsted Experimental Station in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, altered the molecular structure of pyrethrin. His second generation pyrethroid, resmethrin, was effective against house flies, but unstable in sun light.


In the early 1970s, Elliott solved the UV problem. Permethrin, the third generation pyrethroid, was released in 1972, the same year the United States banned most uses of DDT.

Bifenthrin, the active agent in the insecticide I used a week ago, is considered a fourth generation pyrethroid, with greater resistance to UV rays. It has the advantage that it is not water soluble, so doesn’t migrate through the soil. It has the disadvantage that it kills all insects, including ladybugs, and can’t be used need streams. It’s negative effects on humans seem limited to high dosage exposures.

A Geneva convention in 2004 outlawed the use of DDT for everything except controlling malaria carrying mosquitoes. FMC Corporation of Philadelphia, the company that introduced bifenthrin, is now promoting its use on saturated netting used in Africa to control malaria.

Organic farmers still rely on pyrethrum. Botanists have bred strains that contain greater concentrations of pyrethrin than wild populations. The primary producers are subsistence farmers in Kenya and commercial growers in Australia.


Notes:
Grdiša, Martina, Klaudija Caroviæ-Stanko, Ivan Kolak, and Zlatko Šatoviæ. "Morphological and Biochemical Diversity of Dalmatian Pyrethrum (Tanacetum cinerariifolium (Trevir.) Sch. Bip.)," Agriculturae Conspectus Scientificus 74:73-80:2009.

Kinkela, David. DDT and the American Century (2011)

Zitko, Vladimir. "Chlorinated Pesticides: Aldrin, DDT, Endrin, Dieldrin, Mirex" in Heidelore Fiedler, Persistent Organic Pollutants, Volume 3 (2003)


Photographs: Catalpas have had a difficult spring. In the village, leaves opened when afternoons warmed in May, then were killed by the cold temperatures on May 14. The upper leaves were killed, but the ones nearer the ground or nearer the main trunk survived.

They’ve been blooming for more than a week, but the warm afternoons and high winds have apparently dulled the usually white flowers. This week the leaves on my tree were torn, either by the high winds or hail.

1. Catalpa in village, 29 May 2014, with leaves only on low limbs.

2. Same tree fully leafed, 15 June 2014, with flowers only on low limbs.

3. Next tree in row in village, 15, June 2014, with flowers only on limbs.

4. Catalpa along highway, with one barren branch, 29 May 2014.

5. Same tree fully leaved, 15 June 2014; flowers darkened prematurely, none on branch that leafed late.

6. Damaged catalpa leaves in my yard, 15 June 2014.

Sunday, June 08, 2014

Plagues



Weather: Afternoon winds during the week; rain with some hail late yesterday.

What’s blooming in the area: Catalpa, Dr Huey, pink species and hybrid roses, yellow potentilla, silver lace vine, broad leaf yucca, red hot poker, chives, peony, datura, oriental poppy, larkspur, Jupiter’s beard, golden spur columbine, pink evening primrose, blue flax, alfalfa, sweet pea, purple-flowered salvia, Shasta daisy, yellow yarrow, Brome grass.

Vegetable patches have been plowed and, presumably, planted. First brome grass hay cut.

Beyond the walls and fences: Tamarix, alfilerillo, western stickseed, bractless cryptantha, tumble mustard, tufted white evening primrose, purple mat flower, fern leaf globemallow, oxalis, stick leaf, pink and white bindweed, yellow sweet clover, showy milkweed, amaranth, goat’s beard, native and common dandelions, plains paper flowers, cheat, feather, and rice grasses; needle grass seeds twisting and releasing.

In my yard: Privet, beauty bush, skunkbush, Johnson’s Blue geranium, Bath pinks, snow-in-summer, vinca, pink-flowered salvia, Rumanian sage, catmint, Dutch white clover, winecup mallow, coral bell, California poppy, chocolate flower, blanket flower, white yarrow.

Bedding plants: Pansies, snapdragon, French marigold.

Animal sightings: Tan snake with dark markings, geckos, hummingbird on oriental poppy, other small birds, cabbage butterfly, darning needle, ladybugs, lots of baby grasshoppers, harvester and small black ants. I’ve seen an occasional bumble bee, but no smaller ones.


Weekly update: The plagues of Exodus are no metaphor when prolonged drought blights the land.

Instead of doing anything productive this year, I’ve been spending my time coping with consequences. When the winds began, I could do nothing without first confronting Russian thistles. They blew against the gate. Before I could go to the post office, I had to remove debris. Whenever I walked out to check the progress of spring, I spent more time removing thorny carcasses from my paths than I did taking pictures. Then, I spent time removing flesh-colored fragments from my fingers.

When I finally did clean a narrow strip along the drive, I had to be cautious. Shattered bits of thistle were hidden in the grasses.

When I began clearing my main bed this week I discovered the aphids had spread. The area was too large to manage with a hand sprayer. My wrist can only do so many squeezes before the muscles tighten.

I bought a premixed insecticide that can be applied with a hose. The peach is 10 feet high, the bed eight feet wide the length of the house. Afterwards, I couldn’t weed because I didn’t want to sit on the ground with my face below the level of the highest columbine flowers.

I sprayed Thursday. Yesterday, after weeks of high winds and low humidity, it rained. Any residual effects have been washed to the ground, making it more dangerous to weed without further protection against the next generation of insects.


And now there are grasshoppers everywhere. Before I went to the store, I looked up grasshopper control on the web. I was hoping whatever I bought for the aphids might also do something about them.

Instead, I discovered we’re in the midst of a population explosion caused by the warm, dry winter that didn’t kill the eggs laid during last fall’s rains. The experts say there’s nothing to do, except cover your plants and wait it out.

That is not that attitude that built the west. That is a consequence of the prolonged attacks on bureaucrats. Too many years of low budgets and hiring freezes have shifted the hiring pool. As the best have rejected government employment for offers with more security and better pay, others take their place. The timid have learned no action is better than anything that attracts negative notice.

After the Cerro Grande fire threatened Los Alamos, the Forest Service didn’t do controlled burns that might have prevented Las Conchas and last year’s fires. Now, decades after Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the Bernalillo County Extension Office claims "spraying insecticide will be ineffective and will cause more harm than good."

The state agriculture department has "determined that this is a homeowners’ issue rather than an agricultural," and therefore it doesn’t need to do anything.


There are things they can do. The way to control grasshoppers is to destroy their eggs and larvae. The weather service has found them flying into Albuquerque every night in swarms large enough to appear on radar. Has any one gone searching for where they are hatching?

All I’ve seen on the internet are anecdotal comments. One man, identified as a local meteorologist, followed the radar paths out to Albuquerque’s West Mesa. Chuck Jones said, "As soon as you walk toward the first volcano out there, there’s tens of thousands of them,"

Will anything be done to destroy the grubs? All the most likely agencies are part of the Department of Agriculture. It’s budget is being attacked by the left for its subsidies to corporate farmers and from the right for providing food subsidies to the poor and near poor. People’s pay checks are dependent on short term appropriation extensions.

Worse, the politicians who support the petroleum, natural gas and coal industries by fighting any attempt that might limit greenhouse gas emissions have turned against science. They will claim the grasshoppers, like those in Exodus, are God’s punishment for non-believers. Their answer will not be the careful, selective spraying of breeding grounds, but attacks on homosexuals and women for not breeding enough.


Natural disasters are rightly called Acts of God. There is little one can do about drought or heat. Even today’s storms, if they come, won’t help. They will only recycle the water from yesterday with more winds.

There are things, however, people can do about the consequences. The local trash service that refuses to pick up "green waste" reinforces the laziness of people who cut their weeds and let them blow away, rather than burning them, bagging them, or taking them to the dump.

The tree service that cut two of my trees last year probably doesn’t clean its equipment between jobs. Instead, they make vague recommendations that one spray the area with soapy water. They don’t say, to control the aphids they might introduce. The warning absolves them of liability.

The traumatized employees in the Agriculture Department who began as idealists are fighting for survival in an era when long-term unemployment benefits no longer exist and food subsidies are being reduced. They don’t dare do anything that might place them on a "reduction in forces" list.


Gardeners, by definition, are activists against the vagaries of nature. We water when evaporation leaves little in the soil. We know it might help a cottonwood or catalpa survive.

We study EPA warnings before spraying. Even though it may not help much, we know we may save a tree or small garden.

We know the only way to eliminate weeds is prevent them from going to seed, so we weed and weed and weed.

We can’t change nature and we can’t influence politics and we can’t change the habits of our neighbors. But, we don’t have to lose hope in the possibilities of our own efforts. We do not have to give up in despair.


Notes:
ABC News. "Grasshopper Swarms So Dense They Show Up on Radar," 2 June 2014, on-line blog, quotes John R. Garlisch, extension agent at Bernalillo County Cooperative Extension Service, and Katie Goetz of the New Mexico Department of Agriculture.

Time. "New Mexico Forecast: 100% Chance Of A Grasshopper Storm," by Melissa Locker, 3 June 2014, website, quotes Chuck Jones.


Photographs: Peonies were a landscaping plant used by the well-to-do in the 1950s. Below are some local pictures of plantings that have survived from that time.

1. Monsieur Julie Elie peony that bloomed for the first time this week in my garden; it was planted as bare root in 1995; 1 June 2014.

2-4. Landscape peonies in Española, 2 June 2014.

5. Landscape peonies in yard of near neighbor of #2, 2 June 2014.

6. Landscape peonies in yard of another near neighbor of #2, 2 June 2014.

7. Festiva Maxima peony in may yard, planted as bare root two years ago, 4 June 2014.

Sunday, June 01, 2014

Feather Grass


Weather: In one week the weather’s gone from too cold and windy to work outside to too hot; from not being able to work until 9 am, to having to go in around 8:30 am. Everything that blooms is dispirited. Last rain: 5/26/14.

What’s blooming in the area: Austrian copper, Dr Huey, pink species, yellow species and hybrid roses, yellow potentilla, silver lace vine, red hot poker, chives, peony, oriental poppy, Jupiter’s beard, pink evening primrose, blue flax, sweet pea, purple-flowered salvia, yellow yarrow.

Virginia creeper, grapes, catalpas and black locusts releafing after cold the morning of May 14.

Beyond the walls and fences: Tamarix, alfilerillo, western stickseed, bractless cryptantha, tumble mustard, tufted white evening primrose, purple mat flower, fern leaf globemallow, oxalis, pink and white bindweed, amaranth, goat’s beard, native and common dandelions, cheat, needle, feather, rice and June grasses.

In my yard: Fragrant privet, beauty bush, skunkbush, Johnson’s Blue geranium, Bath pinks, snow-in-summer, golden spur columbine, vinca, pink-flowered salvia, catmint, Dutch white clover, baptisia, chocolate flower, white yarrow.

Finally put seeds in this week. Hope the winds have finally died down and the rain penetrated enough for them to germinate.

Bedding plants: Pansies.

Animal sightings: Gecko, small birds, ladybugs, more grasshoppers than usual, harvester and small black ants. Not see any bees yet.


Weekly update: Feather grass is blooming. Most of the year, it’s indistinguishable from its sibling, needle grass. But for the few short weeks it’s in flower, it’s very distinct. While Hesperostipa comata looks like seaweed lapped by water, this resembles the frozen trail of a sparkler on the Fourth of July.

Hesperostipa neomexicana has been in my yard as long as I’ve live here, but usually as a specimen in the gravel by my garage. This year, it’s in a line along the eastern edge of the turn area.

I don’t know if it’s dispersion is the result of the earth mover that built the turn area by moving gravel from the garage area or if seed came with the new gravel delivered from an area on the other side of the Río Grande near Santa Clara.

I’m fairly sure its proliferation this year is the result of last fall’s rains that soaked the seed enough for it to germinate.


The two are members of the Eurasian Stipa tribe within the grass family. The Hesperostipa evolved early, but after the North American continental mass had broken away. They both are found only in the New World.

Needle grass grows is almost every state and province west of the Mississippi or north of the Ohio. Feather grass is concentrated in New Mexico and Arizona, with some spillage into southeastern Nevada, southern Utah and Colorado, and the Edwards Plateau down into Coahuila.

The seed tails or awns, with their arrow-like hairs, seem to prefer rocky soils. Researchers at Utah State University associate the perennial with grasslands that occur "in the narrow to broad transition band between the Rocky Mountains and the Shortgrass Steppe" between 5000' and 7000'. It’s found on the hog backs of the mountain’s front range and in the Chalk Bluffs near the Colorado-Wyoming border.


Paul Peterson and others found the bunch grass on rocky, limestone slopes in Coahuila at 7100'.

In New Mexico, Jeremy McClain and Tessia Robbins found it in the Sandía foothills in gravelly to sandy loam at about 5700'. West of the river, in the Petroglyph National Monument, it’s a dominant grass on the glacial washes, late Pleistocene alluvium, that occur below the mesa in the northern section.

It’s not exactly rare, but it is a victim of overgrazing. "The largest protected stands are likely to be in" the monument boundaries. My yard is one of the smallest protected areas.

Notes:
Jacobs, Surrey, Randall Bayer, Joy Everett, Mirta Arriaga, Mary Barkworth, Alexandru Sabin-Badereau, Amelia Torres, Francisco Va´ Zquez, and Neil Bagnall. "Systematics of the Tribe Stipeae (Gramineae) Using Molecular Data," Aliso 23:349-361:2007.

Muldavin, E., Y. Chauvin, L. Arnold, T. Neville, P. Arbetan and P. Neville. Vegetation Classification and Map: Petroglyph National Monument (2012).


Smithsonian Institution. Department of Botany has the specimens collected in New Mexico by J. McClain and T. Robbins, and in Coahuila by Paul M. Peterson, J. M. Saarela, Konstantyn Romaschenko and J. Valdés-Reyna at Mpio, Saltillo.

Utah State University. Southwest Regional Gap Analysis Project. On-line description of "S086 Western Great Plains Foothill and Piedmont Grassland"

Photographs:
1-5. Feather grass along the edge of my drive, 29 May 2014.


6. Needle grass in my back yard, 23 May 2012.