All That's Green

Weather: Strong winds shredded leaves, parked Russian thistles, and uncovered buried broken glass in the yard; last rain, 4/19/14.

What’s blooming in the area: Tulips, purple iris; grape vines leafing. Lilacs taking a pass.

Beyond the walls and fences: Alfilerillo, western stickseed, bractless and tawny cryptanthas, hoary cress, purple mat flower, woolly plantain, fern leaf globemallow, oxalis, goat’s beard, native and common dandelions, cheat grass.

Trees of heaven sprouting, Virginia creeper leafing, rice, needle and June grasses ready to bloom. Tansy mustard flowers nearly gone, tumble mustard starting.

In my yard: Choke cherry, grape hyacinths, moss phlox,vinca; buds on spirea, privet, and Bath pinks; reseeded California poppies and larkspur up.

Animal sightings: Cottontail rabbit in my yard, jack on the prairie, robin in the village, hummingbird, other small birds, harvester and small black ants, my first bumblebee.

Weekly update: My northern yard is green, the first time since I’ve lived here.

Western stickseeds are everywhere, though there are more on the eastern side of the slope than the west. Water spreads through osmosis from hoses that water the trees and shrubs along the driveway.

Scattered through the stickseeds are some tufted white evening primroses, purple mat flowers and bractless cryptanthas. There are more primroses than I’ve ever seen in this area.

We had a dry winter, followed by a warm spring with a little rain. These are annuals that germinate sometime between late summer and early winter to bloom in early spring.

They won’t last. Stickseeds are members of the borage family that begin as small rosettes, then send up blooming stems. Tiny five-petaled flowers appear at the ends of stems which continually elongate. Lower on the stems, hard shelled nutlets form. When Lappula redowskii plants die, they leave short dead stalks and barbed seeds that attach themselves to socks and pant legs. They usually can be rolled off without the skin getting pierced.

Yesterday, I walked north where housing is mixed with empty fields. The land rises in the east, so water flows downhill to a level plain that slopes gradually to the road. Gypsum phacelias were growing in the catch basin with primroses and stickseeds. Cryptanthas, mat flowers, and woolly plantains were growing in the drier area toward the road.

Between that area and my yard, the land to the east turns into a barren crest with a cone of sand and clay. In that area, the stickseeds were sparser. The other plants only grew in the area near the road where water must get captured by the short slope.

I also walked south into the prairie. The area directly behind my vertical board fence was barren, with just a little winterfat, but a number of primroses. They probably get water from my watering and the septic field.

Uphill, bunch grasses began at my neighbor’s yard. He and another neighbor built a berm above their lands a few year ago that channels water to the area where the grass was growing. Across a rutted road made by some utility trucks a decade ago, the land is undisturbed. Grasses were growing. The only primroses were down toward the ranch road.

Across the ranch road, little water creeps: it’s stopped by the road. My neighbor to the west doesn’t water. The only thing that grows is winterfat. Cryptantha’s more common there, but widely spaced.

After the stickseeds pass, nothing will take their place until the monsoons. Last year, the prairie hill sprouted annual seven-week grama. All the fields to the north were bright green with Russian thistles.

In years when water is scarce, the most minute differences of moisture migration through differing soils are registered by the landscape.

Photographs:
1. Western stickseed, 2 May 2014, my northern yard.

2. Winterfat, western stickseeds, turfed white evening primroses (the white spots), 30 April 2014, my northern yard.

3. Tufted white evening primrose with western stickseeds, 25 April 2014, my northern yard.

4. Western stickseed, 25 December 2007, my western yard.

5. Gypsum phacelia (tall), tufted white evening primroses, bractless cryptantha (short gray), 3 May 2014, to the north.

6. Clumps of dead grass (tall), tufted white evening primrose, bractless cryptantha, 3 May 2014, midway between my yard and #5.

7. Lower half is down hill behind my fence, winterfat, western stickseeds, and tufted white evening primroses. Upper half is bunch grass with few winter annuals. 3 May 2014.

8. Across the ranch road, winterfat, tufted white evening primroses, and bractless cryptantha, 3 May 2014.

9. Bright green Russian thistle growing between clumps of dead grass in the area of #6, last 2 August 2013.

10. Grasses congregating near runoff from water for the peach tree. A bit away are tufted white evening primroses. In the dryer area, western stickseeds. My western yard, 3 May 2014.

11. Woolly plantain growing near the road in the area of #4, 3 May 2014.

The Borages

Weather: Last useful precipitation 4/9/12; 13:34 hours of daylight today.

The early warm period has turned into an ideal time for planting, because the afternoons are still clouding over and moisture is in the air, unlike how it will be in June. The only problem is the occasional spate of high winds like those Thursday afternoon.

What’s blooming in the area: Apples, Austrian Copper, Persian yellow and hybrid roses, forsythia, wisteria, bearded iris, yucca, moss phlox, donkey tail spurge, blue perennial salvia.

Grapes are leafing; this year they waited until after the last cold day, and so weren’t set back like they were last year.

Beyond the walls and fences: Cottonwood, tamarix, fernleaf globemallow, western stickseed, bractless cryptantha, alfilerillo, hoary cress, purple and tansy mustards, purple mat flower, gypsum phacelia, antelope horns, blue gilia, running sand verbena, bindweed, oxalis, goat’s beard, common and native dandelion, June and cheat grasses; buds on Apache plume, cream tips, rice and needle grasses.

Elm seeds are accumulating everywhere.

Large flowered white evening primroses are blooming for the first time since the primrose beetle invasion of 2003.

In my yard: Spirea, lilacs, Siberian pea, tulip, baby blue iris, Bath pinks, snow-in-summer, vinca, yellow alyssum, blue flax; buds on beauty bush, snowball, Jupiter’s beard, coral bells.

New buds are appearing on my catalpa; only one branch seems to have nothing.

Reseeded cosmos seeds are putting out second leaves.

Bedding plants: Pansies, sweet alyssum, petunia.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geranium, pomegranate.

Animal sightings: Chickadees, gecko, harvester and small black ants.

Feeding the local homeless cat has done nothing to discourage the chickadees from breaking into my soffit to nest. I’d rather hoped they’d do a better job of reconnoitering the neighborhood. I started putting out food last summer to stop the cat from lurking under their nest, and hoped, in return, the birds would finally abandon my house.

Weekly update: Spring sees a somewhat orderly succession of plant families, under the general dominance of the roses. Now it’s the borages turn to flower.

The first to arrive was western stickseed, which began germinating in my driveway in early March, and was blooming by mid April.


Because of the warm weather, cool nights, and not quite dehydrating air, the stems are now six to eight inches tall and haven’t started producing seeds.


The next to appear was bractless cyrptantha, which began blooming a few days later than stickseed. Normally, it remains close to the ground


but again, because of the unusual spring, its stems have begun to elongate.


Now there’s a plant blooming I don’t know, but recognize. I’ve been watching it for several years growing in sandy areas of the far arroyo and its banks, but haven’t found it in any of my wildflower field guides. It started producing five petaled white flowers a week ago, on small furry plants like the already blooming members of the borage family.


This week, the stems for the heads have extended, both in the supporting member and within the cluster, so it begins to resemble a mounded phlox.


Soon the florets will brown


And look like the plant has died, much like the annual stickseed and cryptantha which will disappear.


However, come late summer, new leaves will appear


which will persist into winter. Then, some of those winter kill, and new ones emerge, until the cycle repeats itself.


I haven’t yet noticed when seeds germinate, but I’m guessing it was in the weeks just before the flowers appeared. There are more plants out there than I remember this winter.

As for its identity, tiny plants with limited blooming periods are easily overlooked by wildflower enthusiasts, and so are omitted from popular guide books. The number of petals, their color, the hairiness of the leaves is not enough for a botanist to classify a plant, but they are enough for me to give it a label.

If anyone knows what this little flower is, please let me know.

Notes: For more on western stickseed, see entry for 9 December 2007; for bractless cryptantha, see entry for 9 May 2010.

Vicki suggested my borage is the bow-nut cryptantha (Cryptantha jamesii) shown on Gene Jercinovic’s Flowers of the Manzanos web site. When I went to look for it, I found it more closely resembled the tawny cryptantha (Cryptantha fulvocanescens) on Al Schneider’s South West Colorado Wildflowers web site. I never would have found this without Vicki’s assistance. Thanks for the help. As for which species it is, Schneider said it’s nearly impossible to tell one cryptantha from another without a microscope to examine the seeds.

Photographs:
1. Unknown plant, 27 April, 2012, along the bank of the ranch road.

2. Western stickseed, 4 March 2012, growing in my drive in one of its favorite places, the top of a harvester ant hill.

3. Western stickseed, 14 April 2012, on the shoulder of the orchard road.

4. Bractless cryptantha, 18 April 2012, on the prairie.

5. Bractless cryptantha, 19 April 2012, along the bank of the ranch road.

6. Unknown plant, 19 April 2012, far arroyo bottom.

7. Unknown plant colony, 27 April 2012, along the base of the far arroyo left bank.

8. Unknown plant, 23 May 2010, on the prairie.

9. Unknown plant, 27 June 2010, on the prairie.

10. Unknown plant, 28 November 2011, on the prairie.

11. Unknown plant, 18 April 2012, on the prairie.

12. Unknown plant, 27 April 2012.

Western Stickseed

What’s blooming: Sweet alyssum from seed.

What’s still green: Conifers, grasses, Apache plume, roses, Japanese honeysuckle, hollyhock, winecup, columbine, lamb’s quarter, rockrose, California poppy, coral bell, snapdragon, beardtongues, bouncing Bess, blue and yellow flaxes, sea pink, yellow and pink evening primroses, catmint, Rumanian sage, vinca, tansy mustard, sweet alyssum, western stickseed, white sweet clover, sweet pea, sea lavender, yuccas, red hot poker, iris, Saint John’s wort, snakeweed, coreopsis, anthemis, chrysanthemum, tansy, Mount Atlas daisy, Shasta daisy, perky Sue, Mexican hat, purple aster.

What’s gray or gray-green: Salt bush, winterfat, buddleia, loco, snow-in-summer, pinks, fern-leaf yarrow, golden hairy aster.

What’s red: Cholla, soapwort, hartweigii.

What’s blooming inside: Aptenia, geranium.

Animal sightings: Usual red-sided birds and quail continue to feed.

Weather: Cold, clear nights early in the week iced over standing water along the road; more recently, clouds moved in to scatter droplets at sundown; rain yesterday; more rain and a little snow last night.

Weekly update: Whatever is a spring annual like western stickseed doing germinating in my driveway now, when other plants are either going dormant or dying from the cold? Normally, I see the basal rosettes emerge after March 20th and start flowering the second week of April.

It’s a question that puzzles botanists like Kathy Freas and Paul Kemp, who know desert annuals sprout when there’s enough moisture at the right temperature. What they wonder is how does a species survive when a cool temperature plant like Lappula occidentalis germinates just before a drought or severe cold that kills seedlings.

When they compared plants that germinate in the heat of summer when moisture is more reliable in the Chihuahuan desert with those like stickseed, they found the cool-season plants had developed genes that controlled dormancy, while summer plants had not.

Dormancy allows plants to build seed reserves which can sprout when conditions change dramatically. Stickseed is one of the first plants to arrive after a fire, stays long after the soil has been trampled by cattle.

For years, western stickseed pushed up thin stems with tiny, five-petaled, bluish-white flowers. Those stalks would unfurl, much like their forget-me-not cousins, to produce more color on top while hairy, green balls replaced spent blooms. The taproot could send up multiple, sparsely leaved columns, but usually they remained small, delicate plants that crept along the edges of garden beds.

Then, in 2004 the upper yard was covered with clumps where the ground had been disturbed in 2001 to bury a natural gas line. That area had been colonized by muhly ring grass until the drought of 2002-2003. The flowers were equally prolific in 2005, but since, the annuals have put out fewer and shorter racemes.

Perhaps the seed bank has been exhausted, although seeds are the one thing I know have been produced abundantly. The hard, odd-shaped dark seeds start to form in May, and attach themselves to my socks and pant legs in June. They remain a nuisance after the plants have dried into brittle stalks, enough to keep me out of the area where they’re growing and, coincidentally, protect the nearby soil.

It’s just been in the past few weeks, the very time that the vagrants have been growing in my drive, that the dead clumps have disappeared, probably broken off by the high winds and blown elsewhere to drop whatever barbed seeds remain.

The plants may have been shunted aside by snakeweed which also appeared in that area after the drought, and is not polite enough to quietly leave at the end of the season. Or, the tiny Lappula may not have liked the higher levels of rain and snow in the past few years.

It’s impossible to predict what will happens next year; the crop is too dependent of whatever combination of temperature and water exists in early spring. All I can do when I stop to open my gate is look for the white-haired volunteers to see how long they survive the coming cold.

Notes:
Freas, Kathy E. and Paul R. Kemp. “Some Relationships Between Environmental Reliability and Seed Dormancy in Desert Annual Plants,” The Journal of Ecology, 71:211-217:1983.

Photograph: Two western stickseed seedlings, 8 December 2007, with tansy mustard in back.