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, hartweigii, catmint, Rumanian sage, vinca, tansy mustard, sweet alyssum, white bristle stickseed, baptista, 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, chocolate flower, black-eyed Susan.
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.
What’s blooming inside: Aptenia, geranium.
Animal sightings: More birds than usual on utility line Friday morning when the storm was in the air; flock of small birds in abandoned road bed Saturday morning, probably migrating; quail and red-sided birds in yard, no see-ums; brown goat down the road, horses in the village.
Weather: Cold early in week, snow lingered until rain Friday night; water in the wide arroyo yesterday morning; balmy in the afternoon.
Weekly update: Anyone who has both rented and owned a home knows there is a difference. In both cases, you enjoy the views and interior layout, but only in the one do you become intimately familiar with septic systems and furnaces.
A similar experiential difference exists between growing a plant and seeing it from a car. Take Apache plume. Anyone can enjoy the five-petaled single white flowers and pink, feathery seed heads in summer. But you only see the leaves and stems if you can get close to the loosely-branched shrub.
Many simply say the leaves are tiny or finely divided. In fact, they resemble small hands with narrow lobes that are shorter on the sides than in the middle. They unfurl much like fists, and often remain cupped rather than opening flat. They no only do not upholster the stems, but are neigh invisible from a distance.
When people can’t routinely see something, they tend to see what they expect. Shaw and Monsen observed new leaves emerge on this thornless member of the rose family in mid-April in Boise and expand in mid-May. Many who see the still green leaves in winter assume they are the same leaves.
In fact, my leaves begin to turn yellow in autumn after morning temperatures drop: last year it was early September, this year mid-October, a week after the first severely cold morning. In the past few week new leaves have been developing where the old ones are turning brown. With luck, they’ll remain on the plant.
New leaves do appear in spring, and this past year they displaced tan ones that had persisted through last year’s snows. It could take several years for me to fully comprehend the pattern, because our climate varies so much from year to year. Now I’ve had the shrubs for 18 months, all I know is what to look for.
The plant grows wild here, but it’s taken three tries to find commercial cuttings that would settle in my yard. Even though Apache plume’s a Chihuahuan desert shrub that has expanded its range, it’s still discriminating. When I’m driving, plants appear randomly along the road and across the river near San Ildefonso. In fact, they prefer the edges of arroyos and other run-offs and the ones I see daily are growing along a paved road that crosses a wide arroyo where their dense rhizomatous roots can reach water stored by both.
It’s cultural range is much smaller than its natural one: all the native usages mentioned by Moerman are from New Mexico or Arizona. Many tribes used the straight, slim branches for arrow shafts, but the Havasupai and Haulapai used roots and branches for cordage. Both the Santa Clara, who talked to men from the Smithsonian around 1910, and Spanish-speaking women, who talked with Curtin in the late 1940's in northern New Mexico, used poñil leaves for hair rinses.
Most pueblo people do not mention an association with witchcraft. The Kayenta Navajo of Arizona believed witches used the plant to induce insanity, but local Spanish-speakers mixed dried poñil plumes with other ingredients to counteract illness fomenting magic. Only the Sandia admit their brooms made from Apache plume branches are kept in the house for their "spiritual presence," while others, including the Santa Clara, simply say the brooms exist for outside use.
The difference between a cultural range and a biological one is like that between the renter and the owner, the grower and the admirer. On its own, Fallugia paradoxa prefers life under trees. In return, its branches shelter piñon seedlings and its roots harbor a cancer-fighting species of penicillium.
In the net of civilization, Apache plume’s reduced to an object of beauty by Idaho gardeners and to raw material by Arizona natives. Still, along the Rio Grande where the pueblos and Spanish settlers exchanged beliefs in witchcraft, it’s been absorbed into views of the world and the origin of things bad that are no more public than the tiny leaves alternating along pealing stems.
Notes:
Curtin, L. S. M. Healing Herbs of the Upper Rio Grande, 1947, republished 1997, with revisions by Michael Moore.
Dunmire, William M. and Gail D. Tierney. Wild Plants of the Pueblo Province, 1995, includes Sandia.
Moerman, Dan. Native American Ethnobotany, 1998, and on-line database includes Lucille J. Watahomigie, Hualapai Ethnobotany, 1982; Steven A. Weber and P. David Seaman, Havasupai Habitat, 1985; and Leland C. Wyman and Stuart K. Harris, The Ethnobotany of the Kayenta Navaho, 1951.
Robbins, William Wilfred, John Peabody Harrington and Barbara Friere-Marreco, Ethnobotany of the Tewa Indians, 1916.
Shaw, Nancy L. and Stephen B. Monsen. "Phenology and Growth Habits of Nine Antelope Bitterbrush, Desert Bitterbrush, Stansbury Cliffrose, and Apache-plume Accessions," in Arthur R. Tiedemann and Kendall L.Johnson, Proceedings--Research and Management of Bitterbrush and Cliffrose in Western North America; 1982, cited by Jack McWilliams, "Fallugia paradoxa," 2000, in USDA Fire Effects Information System on-line database.
Simmons, Marc. Witchcraft in the Southwest: Spanish and Indian Supernaturalism on the Rio Grande, 1980.
Zhan J, E.M. K. Wijeratne, C. J. Seliga, J. Zhang, E. E. Pierson, L. S. Pierson III, H. D. Vanetten, and A. A. L. Gunatilaka. "A New Anthraquinone and Cytotoxic Curvularins of a Penicillium sp. from the Rhizosphere of Fallugia paradoxa of the Sonoran Desert," Journal of Antibiotics 57:341-344:2004.
Photograph: Apache plume leaves, after the snow, 29 November 2007.
What’s blooming: Sweet alyssum from seed, purple aster.
What still has leaves that shouldn’t: Spirea, forsythia, beauty bush, weigela; some local cottonwoods, catalpas, Russian olives, weeping willows..
What’s still green and visible above the snow: Conifers, grasses, Apache plume, roses, hollyhock, snapdragon, columbine, bouncing Bess, California poppy, rockrose, pink evening primrose, vinca, sea lavender, yuccas, red hot poker, Saint John’s wort.
What’s still gray-green: Salt bush.
What’s still gray: Buddleia, snow-in-summer, pinks, winterfat.
What’s turning red: Cholla, coral bell.
What’s blooming inside: Aptenia, geranium.
Animal sightings: Quail, small brown birds with light bellies and red sides; gopher active.
Weather: Snow late Thursday night, everything not buried in the morning was wearing a white crown; little melting since.
Weekly update: Nature’s a bit of an exotic dancer. She thrills you with her whirling colors and flourishes. Then, when you think you’ve seen everything, she drops her skirts and you discover what’s been hidden behind her leaves.
Down the road, unpicked apples expose their abstract placement. In the yard, I can see buds for next year’s lilacs and peaches. When I looked at the bare locust tree to see what was still green, I found Doctor Huey roses growing into the branches.
In town, catalpas bloom at slightly different times in June, but now I can find them all by their straight, parallel pods hanging like icicles frozen in the wind. Most lie among other trees and shrubs along property lines extending back from the highway in town where people built after the automobile made that a desirable location. Others dot the farm, village and orchard roads.
I just discovered the tree I planted in 2000 had bloomed this year, and I never noticed: the broad, heart-shaped leaves obscured the flowers, then shrouded three pods. I assumed my tree was still getting established. Joseph Breck warned gardeners in 1851 they didn’t bloom until they were ten to twelve feet tall. Mine, after years of drought and grasshoppers, is still only eight feet high.
I also wasn’t sure if the tree I ordered from an Ohio nursery was the same species that grew in village. The southern Catalpa bignoniodes was discovered in the southern colonies and spread north as an ornamental. Seeds were shipped to England in 1726. It’s still the most common variety in commerce.
The northern Catalpa speciosa was noticed by William Henry Harrison when he was territorial governor of Indiana territory between 1800 and 1812. However, botanists assumed it was simply an ecotype of the familiar southern tree with variations in habit attributable to differences in climate and soil. While scientists didn’t separate the two until later, Harrison took seeds back to Cincinnati where they spread through Ohio at the same time other settlers were bringing southern seeds in from the east.
Herbert Roberts suggests the easiest way to distinguish the two is by their bark: speciosa is furrowed, while bignoniodes has a scaly, pealing outer surface. The leaves of the one have a more pointed tip than the other. His photographs suggest the parallel, diagonal pods I see in town appear on northern trees while my crooked pods are found on southern ones.
I planted mine because I liked the white flowers that floated above new leaves. I’m not sure why others here grew a tree associated with the rich bottom lands of the Wabash and central Mississippi rivers. In Ohio, they were valued for fence posts, because the wood doesn’t rot in the ground.
In 1902, Roberts was suggesting the northern species be grown for rail ties in notoriously treeless Kansas. At that time, the Rio Grande Western was growing 60,000 saplings as an experiment in Provo, Utah. The year before, that rail line had merged with the Denver and Rio Grande which had reached our valley in 1880. It’s possible some railroad gandydancer brought northern seeds to town.
More likely, they were simply an ornamental grown to beautify the main road to Santa Fe after World War II when traffic picked up and people finally had some extra cash, as well as exposure to landscape design in other parts of the country where they’d been stationed. The use among other trees or shrubs is the one suggested by Breck a century before, perhaps because catalpas grow best in some shade.
Reliable as they may be when they’re converted into lumber, alluring as they may be in bloom, they are still a tease. Every year they grow in late summer. Every year their terminal buds are killed by cold. Every year, you must wait to see it they survived, for they are the last tree to leaf in spring. And then, this year, nature concealed my flowers and pods until she resumed her danse de la vie.
Notes:
Breck, Joseph. The Flower-Garden,1851, reprinted by OPUS Publications,1988.
Roberts, Herbert F. “The Hardy Catalpa”, Kansas State Agricultural College Bulletin 108:99-140, 146-213:1902.
Photograph: Catalpa pods and snow, 23 November 2007; dark, oval spot is a neighbor’s trash container at the road.
What’s blooming: Coral bell, snapdragon and sweet alyssum from seed, chrysanthemum, purple aster.
Inside: Aptenia, geranium; coral honeysuckle putting out more new leaves.
Animal sightings: Small birds flit from peach to catalpa and beyond
Weather: Cold mornings with the smell of wood smoke, warm afternoons; last rain, 29 September.
Weekly update: Tis the fickle time of year when warm afternoons belie cold mornings and you can’t tell if a flower is real or a desicated shell of itself. Unsheddable dead leaves, most brown, stay on trees. Cherries and spirea remain shades of scarlet, but it’s impossible to know from a distance if they’re shriveled or whole.
Russian olives clasp dry, grey-green leaves, but I have one with a few narrow willow-type lances still turning yellow. Nearer the river, some trees looked untouched yesterday by last Thursday morning’s cold.
Elaeagnus angustifolia is an anomalous presence, a silvery fruit that’s not an olive, but an oleaster, an import from Europe that’s filled open gaps along the river. Mennonites who fled Prussian conscription for the Ukraine in 1789, spent years learning dryland farming and the value of windbreaks. When Russia threatened conscription in 1880, many migrated to the opening wheat lands of our plains and brought with them both the idea of a shelter belt and Russian olives. They arrived in South Dakota in 1874; in 1901, the state Agricultural Experiment Station issued a bulletin from Niels Hansen promoting the ornamental species.
Cuttings spread among Mormons in Arizona and Utah, and were growing in Mesilla Park in 1903 where New Mexico State was developing its new horticulture farm. Elmer Wooten and Paul Standley reported trees in several places in the state in 1915, but it didn’t naturalize along the middle Rio Grande until dams were completed at Elephant Butte in 1916 and Cochiti in 1975.
Some despise it as a reminder of what has been lost along the rivers. But, if home landscaping reveals anything about our views of an ideal natural world, then some here associate the trees with the river they knew as children. Two of the ten owners of ambitious homes built since I moved here in 1991 have planted Russian olives.
Their unconscious ideal may be a pink adobe set far back from the farm road sheltered by cottonwoods. While the back is now wild wood, the front is dominated by two large specimen Russian olives, one on each side of a bare yard so flat it has to have been leveled by flood irrigation. Grassland expanding out from the homestead to the road is all that remains from the agrarian past, and yesterday that green had retreated to the protection of the trees.
The new home owners differ from the traditional one because they no longer can afford to be open to strangers who use the main road. Their trees screen their houses from unseemly prying. But like the person who imposed formality of the rural land, these people didn’t act on some impulse in the local hardware. Russian olives can no longer be sold in the state. They went to some trouble to find and transplant thorny saplings to places where they could be seen from front windows.
Why? Perhaps because the airy placement of leaves with grey-scaled underbellies along dark curving boughs contrasts with the more somber cottonwoods in the drought of summer. Maybe, the fragrance from tiny yellow flowers in spring promises the return of life flowing from its nitrogen fixing roots. Even now, the spectral leaves sheltering green grass give hope that wintry cold may be delayed.
These images of the past, the future, and the river may be as illusionary as today’s freeze dried leaves, but they’re woven into life in a forever changing river valley.
Notes:
Garcia, Fabian. Comments on Mesilla Park, 1903, cited by Deborah M. Finch and Joseph A. Tainter, Ecology, Diversity and Sustainability of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1995.
Hansen, Niels Ebbesen. Ornamentals for South Dakota, 1901.
Tellman, Barbara. "Stowaways and Unwanted Guests: How Some Exotic Plants Reached the American Southwest," California Exotic Pest Plant Council, 1996 symposium, comment on Mormons available on-line.
Wooten, Elmer Otis and Paul Carpenter Standley. Flora of New Mexico, 1915.
Photograph: Russia olive on farm road with small cottonwood in front, 11 November 2007.
What’s blooming: Coral bell, snapdragon and sweet alyssum from seed, chrysanthemum, purple aster.
Inside: Aptenia, geranium; coral honeysuckle putting out new leaves.
Animal sightings: Birds in fruit trees.
Weather: Some very cold mornings; changes in sun angles more obvious; last rain, 29 September.
Weekly update: Winterfat looks the same all year. Most don’t actually notice it. Many, who see it along my drive, tell me it’s chamisa; a few say sagebrush. All that registers is a large, nondescript grey shrub with dark, pealing branches.
When I look more closely, I realize it changes with the seasons and the years. It begins as a small, erect sprig, with clusters of narrow grey leaves covered with white hairs. If it’s not yanked quickly, it puts down a deep tap root that splits into a Y a foot or so below the surface, firmly anchoring it against the winds. It also spreads more fibrous, shallower roots to collect surface moisture.
The little twig becomes several foot long branches rising from a short, yellowish trunk. Each year, new stalks are added, or the existing ones grow longer. My largest shrubs are about 7' wide with spreading 4' long branches, laying over dead wood. In areas where cattle or sheep graze in early winter, mature wood, filled with crude protein, disappears and the vigor of the bush increases from low buds on the trunk.
New leaves appear in spring that nudge off ones that survived the winter. Clusters of young, short, curved leaves are interspersed with inch-long, solitary lances. The rejected leaves join the remains of last year’s seeds in a self-maintained mulch beneath the lowest branches.
Flower spikes emerge in early summer where leaf clusters connect to the branches, an event invisible to all but the most acute observers. Like other members of the goosefoot family, this Chenopodium produces only the most essential parts: male and female organs anchored in separate cups of bracts, protected by tiny horns. No petals, no sepals, no scent.
Once the wind has moved the pollen down stem from the males to the females, across the shrub or to other plants, grey-green seeds form. Their tufts of white hairs transform bushes into piles of fluffy wands spreading above skeletal bases. The shrubs are at they’re most beautiful in early fall when sunlight filters through the seed heads.
Now the weather’s turned cold and the fine hairs that cover the leaves are turning pink. Many seed heads have disappeared, their seeds turned light brown. The branch tips are reverting to their lamb’s quarter form with narrow spikes curving out from clusters of clasping leaves.
Soon they will become forlorn heaps of brittle wood with tiny leaves no longer visible from afar. Beneath the wooly coverings, the leaves of summer were pale green, the twigs straw. In winter, everything looks like a Whistler study in black and grey.
On the ground, still attached seed hairs will collect moisture that will freezes to insulate the embryos from our wide ranging daily temperatures. Then, in the spring, when the air approaches 59 degrees, life will stir itself, new buds swell, and winterfat will rejuvinate itself.
Notes:
Booth, D. Terrance. Work with winterfat seeds described by Don Comis, "Winterfat Seeds Take Ice Stakes Through the Heart," Agricultural Research, 47:24:January 1999.
Carey, Jennifer H. "Krascheninnikovia lanata," 1995, in United States Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System, available on-line.
Photograph: Winterfat tip, 6 November 2007.
What’s blooming in the area: Áñil del muerto, purple asters.
What’s blooming in my garden: Snapdragon, coral bell bud, petunia behind hollyhock leaves, sweet alyssum from seed, blanket flower, chrysanthemum.
Inside: Aptenia, geranium.
Animal sightings: Quail, ants.
Weather: Some very cold mornings; last rain, 29 September.
Weekly update: We’re having a genuine autumn this year, after several years with no serious frost until late November. After the cold a week ago Monday, trees that had stayed green suddenly were brown. Those that had some intimation of the coming desolation were more intensely yellow. A few had brown, yellow, and green patches.
Beneath the surface, abscisic acid is sealing the joints between branches and leaves, so that no open wounds remain when leaves finally drop. Meanwhile, the rate of photosynthesis is slowing as perennials enter winter dormancy, and the quantity of chlorophyll in leaves is decreasing. As the green fades, other leaf pigments become visible, including the yellow xanthophyll.
Xanthophyll had been known for years when Frederick Addicott’s team reported abscisic acid as a long sought growth inhibiting hormone in 1963. It begins as xanthoxin with 15 carbon, 22 hydrogen, and 3 oxygen atoms which have split from the 40 carbon, 56 hydrogen, and 4 oxygen atoms in a molecule of violaxanthin.
Xanthoxin is inherently unstably, and loses two hydrogen atoms to become abscisic acid aldehyde. When exposed to oxygen, that molecule converts into abscisic acid with a half life of about eight hours and four oxygen atoms. That in turn becomes phaseic acid with another oxygen atom, then dihydrophaseic acid with two more hydrogen atoms.
Xanthophyll sounded much simpler when Jöns Jakob Berzelius described the pigments in fall leaves in 1837. Scientists have since applied the term to any oxygen compound with 40 carbon and 56 hydrogen atoms.
The most important xanthophyll in leaves at dawn is violaxanthin. Instead of shucking off atoms and moving through the plant as abscisic acid, it stays in the leaf and loses an oxygen atom to become antheraxanthin. Later in the day, it loses another oxygen atom to become zeaxanthin, before reverting to its original state in the night.
Scientists want to know more than that zeaxanthin is created to protect the photosynthesis centers in leaves from increased solar energy levels in the day or that abscisic acid is a response to threats from low temperatures and drought. They want to know the nature of the bonds that connect those carbon atoms, the type of oxygen, the enzymes that transform each of the compounds, and the system of communication that triggers the creation of xanthoxin.
I don’t think about molecules, when I look through my windshield at the changing patterns of color formed by groupings of trees against the open fields, the sky, and each other. Still, it’s reassuring to know laboratory scientists remain who use the simple methods we were taught in high school chemistry to submit any scientific postulation, no matter how complex, to the old tests of dissolution, heating, sniffing, and spectrum analysis to reveal the beauty beneath senescent skin.
Notes:
Compounds in the abscisic acid chain
C40 H56 O4 - violaxanthin
C15 H22 O3 - xanthoxin
C15 H20 O3 - abscisic acid aldehyde
C15 H20 O4 - abscisic acid
C15 H20 O5 - phaseic acid
C15 H22 O5 - dihydrophaseic acid
Compounds in the violaxanthin chain
C40 H56 O4 - violaxanthin
C40 H56 O3 - antheraxanthin
C40 H56 O2 - zeaxanthin
Photograph: Yellow and green leaves on young cottonwood, 3 November 2007.
What’s blooming in the area: Roses, white sweet clover, pink evening primrose, winterfat, chamisa, snakeweed, áñil del muerto, golden and purple asters.
What’s blooming in my garden: Pinks, snapdragon, petunia, chocolate flower, blanket flower, chrysanthemum.
Inside: Aptenia.
Animal sightings: Ants.
Weather: Frost on my windshield Monday morning; last rain, 29 September.
Weekly update: Virginia Creeper. The very name evokes the Blue Ridge or primeval forests that greeted the first settlers at Jamestown.
I shouldn’t be surprised it grows almost elsewhere in the country. After all, many plants are named when they’re first encountered, before more is known about them. Canadians call it Engelman ivy.
Still it’s a surprise to have it constantly volunteering in arid New Mexico. Most of the specimens in the university herbarium are from counties along the Continental Divide, east of the Sangre de Cristo, or along the roads and railroads west from Albuquerque. Nothing from Rio Arriba or its neighboring counties.
The Zhangs and Shi tested Parthenocissus quinquefolia as a potential restoration tool in the Hunshandak sand lands of northern China and discovered that when the woody vine has less soil moisture, it transfers its growth to its taproot and alters the breathing patterns of its leaf stomata.
Here many of the places it grows are shaded, but some are in sun all day. Many, including those under trees, may have access to preserved water. The vines growing along fences may also have found water conserved by nearby roads. The liana is apparently very adept at exploiting soil, water, and light conditions.
Since it seems unlikely it invaded the Española valley by itself, it probably was introduced: the local hardware often sells rooted cuttings. I suspect the plants covering two tall cottonwood stumps down the road were deliberately planted, and I think the vine in front of a large pine tree hitched when they dug the tree up and moved it here.
It has erupted in my yard in so many places I thought maybe the seed was in the soil, waiting for water. But Van Clef and Stiles says that’s not possible, that the seed is only good for a season. Indeed, most forest herbs don’t create seed banks.
The seeds are spread by birds. However, less than half the dozen places it’s growing along the main road are near utility lines. The only vines that aren’t on fences, are in trees. Normally I drive in heavy commuter traffic when the birds have retreated to a few sections of the overhead lines; pigeons prefer the metal roofs of two out buildings. Birds don’t perch everywhere Virginia creeper grows.
In my yard, birds occasionally land on one of the fences, but not the fences where Virginia creeper has attempted to grow. Various types of birds have nested in my porch, in my garage, and in my neighbor’s metal barn. A number of the seedlings have sprouted near the eaves or down wind or downhill from the undereave entry points. Virginia creeper has been growing next to my neighbor’s barn since at least 1997, but didn’t start to put many vines through or under the border fence until after last summer’s wet season. It usually takes a few years to establish itself. So far, the tendrils haven’t used their adhesive pads to climb the wood, so they might safely be left to compete with the downy chess grass, wild lettuce, and horseweed that grow along that section of driveway.
The only problem with birds as the agent for diffusion is that before there can be seed to drop, there must be flowers. Like other members of the grape family, Virginia creeper’s green floral clusters are so small they wouldn’t be seen from the road and the purple berries are too dark. So it means nothing to say I’ve never seen them blooming. However, Iverson’s team says they don’t flower often, at least in Illinois, and Grey-Wilson warns his vines only fruit during hot summers in Britain.
That leaves a puzzlement. Along the main road, the places with dense colonies of vines are too far apart to be spreading from a single plant, and neither far enough nor close enough for birds. The only alternative is that once a plant is established it roots its own branches, which may grow twenty feet a year, and expands on its own momentum. Then, when it does produce fruit, a bird can move it another thousand feet down the fence or across the road.
It’s persistence and spread may be a bit of a riddle, but nature is unfaed. Most of the year, Virginia creeper blends with other vegetation, dark green leaves in summer, dead leaves in fall, bare branches in winter. For just a brief spell, ended this year by last Monday’s cold, nature shows off when the five-part leaves turn burgundy and reveal their profligacy.
Notes:
Grey-Wilson, Christopher. Gardening on Walls, 1982, cited by Ken Fern, Plants for a Future Database, available on-line.
Iverson, Louis. Illinois Plaint Information Network, with data compiled by David Ketzner and Jeanne Karnes; available on-line.
University of New Mexico herbarium. Institute of Natural Resource Analysis and Management on-line database.
Van Clef, Michael and Edmund W. Stiles. "Seed Longevity in Three Pairs of Native and Non-native Congeners: Assessing Invasive Potential," Northeastern Naturalist, 8:301-310:2001.
Zhang, Z.J., L. Shi, J.Z. Zhang and C.Y. Zhang. "Photosynthesis and Growth Responses of Parthenocissus quinquefolia (L.) Planch to Soil Water Availability," Photosynthetica 42:87-92:2004.
Photograph: Virginia creeper growing over a stone wall near the orchards and climbing into the apple trees behind; dried pigweed in front; 20 October 2006.
What’s blooming in the area: Roses, Heavenly Blue morning glory, narrow leaf globemallow, white sweet clover, chamisa, winterfat, Tahokia daisy, Maximilian and native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, broom senecio, gumweed; golden, strap leaf and purple asters; cottonwoods turning yellow by the river; horses in to pasture.
What’s blooming in my garden, looking north: Chocolate flower, blanket flower, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, chrysanthemum.
Looking east: Sweet alyssum, winecup, hollyhock, larkspur, California poppies, Crackerjack marigolds.
Looking south: Rugosa rose.
Looking west: Catmint, purple ice plant.
Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragons, petunia, Dahlberg daisy.
Inside: Aptenia, zonal geranium.
Animal sightings: Quail still harvesting the yard; grasshoppers, ants, black widow spider, ladybug on saltbush; Juara, the runaway cat, is still well-fed and living under my neighbor’s abandoned truck.
Weather: Windy evenings and cold mornings; last rain, 29 September.
Weekly update: It’s so easy to impute modern life in Rio Arriba county to its Spanish heritage and very difficult to identify the deeper strands of influence without falling into the snares of romanticism or stereotype.
Oñate arrived in our valley in 1598, hunting for gold, and found people who’d been farming along the river confluences for several hundred years. A generation later, Alonso de Benevides saw water for irrigation, piñon for fuel and food, adobe for building, and Spanish settlers on the best lands in 1630.
When Zebulon Pike explored the upper Rio Grande in 1807, he didn’t see enough wood to support a moderate population for 15 years He thought they would be reduced to mudbrick houses and have to settle for "cattle, horses, sheep and goats" rather than crops. He labeled the plains an "internal desert" and people stayed away until artesian wells were introduced.
What separated the two military scouts were the expectations that come with time. Seventeenth century colonists still accepted contact with Spain every three years. Nineteenth century Americans no longer tolerated rivers that weren’t navigable enough to ship crops to market.
The Franciscans saw Tewa speaking pueblos they thought could be turned into farm hands like the Moriscos in southern Spain. Americans met mobile Indians who’d had the horse for many of those intervening 177 years and weren’t about to labor for them.
The natives of arid Spain knew how to live with less than 20" of rain a year, the easterners did not. Landscape and experience influenced how each saw the possibilities of New Mexico.
The expectations of snapdragons are easier to meet. They like cool weather and limestone soil. Mine usually stop blooming in the summer and resume with better flowers in the fall after they’ve grown more leaves. Most years, a few perennials survive the winter to grow, if not bloom, the following summer. Several have gone to seed and reappeared closer to water.
This year the Bells, Sonnets, and Rockets stayed in bloom until August when the monsoons failed, and resumed flowering the middle of September when water returned to the area. When last summer stayed wet and cool, Sonnets and Rockets bloomed until mid-September, then stopped for the year.
Weather is the hidden link to Spain. Back when the earth was covered by jungle in the middle Eocene, 38 to 54 million years ago, a drier area developed outward from the modern Mediterranean. The traditional snapdragon family, Scrophulariaceae, evolved to the west in the Mandran.
When the modern distribution of climates emerged some five million years ago, Antirrhinum developed in the relicts of that Mandran-Tythan band, in modern California and Iberia. The continents had long been separated, so parallel developments could only have resulted from similar genetic responses to changing conditions by species with common ancestors.
My snapdragons may be derived from Spain’s purple Antirrhinum majus that have been bred for color, habit and resistance to fungus, but they aren’t popular here because they came with the conquistadores. The bedding plants are bought as soon as they appear in stores in April because people have had good luck with them and they like the bright complex flower spikes.
An accumulation of experiences has formed both our expectations for a good flower and the snapdragon’s ability to survive our harsh summers. It’s more than wondrous coincidence that both the buyers and the flowers come from Spain, but not an inevitable consequence of shared national heritage. Landscape still matters.
Notes:
Axelrod, Daniel I. "Evolution and Biogeography of Madrean-Tethyan Sclerophyll Vegetation, "Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 62:280-334:1975.
Benavides, Alonso de. Memorial que fray Juan de Santaner de la orden de S. Francisco presenta a la Magestad Catolica del Rey don Felipe Quarto, 1630, republished 1996 as A Harvest of Reluctant Souls, translated and edited by Baker H. Morrow.
Gübitz, Thomas, Ailsa Caldwell, and Andrew Hudson. "Rapid Molecular Evolution of Cycloidea-like Genes in Antirrhinum and Its Relatives," Molecular Biology and Evolution 20:1537-1544:2003.
Pike, Zebulon. Quoted by Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, 1931.
Photograph: Snapdragon with seed stalks, 20 October 2007.
What’s blooming in the area: Roses, silver lace vine, buddleia, datura, Heavenly Blue morning glory, rose of Sharon, narrow leaf globemallow, white sweet clover, chamisa, broom snakeweed, winterfat, Tahokia daisy, Maximilian and native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, ragweed, broom senecio; golden, heath, strapleaf and purple asters; milkweed leaves turning yellow.
What’s blooming in my garden, looking north: Golden spur columbine, chocolate flower, blanket flower, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, yellow cosmos, chrysanthemum; rose hips.
Looking east: Pinks, sweet alyssum, sidalcea, winecup, hollyhock, California poppies, Crackerjack marigolds.
Looking south: Rugosa rose, Crimson Rambler morning glory, Sensation cosmos, zinnia
Looking west: Russian sage, catmint, purple ice plant; leadplant leaves turned red, lily leaves turning yellow
Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragons, petunia, Dahlberg daisy
Inside: Aptenia, zonal geranium
Animal sightings: Quail, grasshoppers, ants; gopher active; goats in empty field down the road.
Weather: Cold temperatures destroyed grape and zinnia leaves, but zinnias are still blooming; winds continued to scatter seed. Last rain, 9/29/07.
Weekly update: Plants that went into remission in the summer heat and drought are blooming again. The rugosa rose, pinks, and snapdragons do this every year, but it’s not routine for my cutleaf coneflower.
I’m not sure what is normal for it, since it shouldn’t grow here at all. Rudbeckia laciniata prefers stream banks and forest edges, and can’t tolerate drought. My rhizomatous plant must depend on water in the soil rather than atmosphere, since the one is fairly constant here, and the other changes every year.
This particular composite, with its distinctive young green cone, does occur naturally in Rio Arriba county. Standley saw it along the Brazos river north of Tierra Amarilla in 1911. It’s since been spotted along the Rio Vallecitas in Carson National Forest. Both are at much higher elevations than Española.
Even with its seeming obscurity, Curtin found Spanish speakers in northern New Mexico who knew dormilón well enough to tell her they used its leaves to treat gonorrhea and "female trouble" in the late 1940's. More recently, Moore heard it used for late periods as well as uterine and vaginal problems.
The basal rosette of deeply lobed leaves arrived in my yard by chance. I ordered Maximilian sunflowers from an Iowa nursery in 1999, and this was shipped instead. Since it’s not something Henry Field offers, I don’t know if it was a local volunteer, stowed there in some seed, or crowded out a potted plant it bought elsewhere for resale.
My plant normally starts producing clusters of yellow flowers on 5' stalks the end of July and stops five weeks later. Why it’s reblooming now on lower branches when the leaves are already turning yellow is as big a mystery as how it survives this arid environment.
Botanists believe the leaves that produce a plant’s food through photosynthesis control its blooming schedule by sending messages to the cell production center in the central stem when they detect the species specific necessary hours of darkness. That would help explain why the late spring and early summer plants are reblooming, but not this late summer plant.
Perhaps the failure of the monsoons disrupted the cycle of this water loving perennial and stopped the growth of some stems in August. When it finally rained, those inactive stalks may have resumed growth and now are mature enough to send urgent signals to their meristems to convert to reproduction as quickly as possible.
Its taken botanists some seventy years to establish the little they now about flowering cycles. Why should a stray cutleaf coneflower let the most recent theories stop it from blooming when it needs to?
Notes:Curtin, L. S. M. Healing Herbs of the Upper Rio Grande, 1947, republished 1997, with revisions by Michael Moore.Moore, Michael. Los Remedios: Traditional Herbal Remedies of the Southwest, 1990.New Mexico State University. "Vallecitas Mountain Refuge, Tusas Mountains, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico," 2004, available o.Standley, Paul C. "The Ferns of Brazos Canyon, New Mexico," Amen-linerican Fern Journal 4:109-114:1914.Zeevaart Jan A. D. "Florigen Coming of Age after 70 Years," The Plant Cell 18:1783-1789:2006.
Photograph: Cutleaf coneflower with bud, young flower with green cone and older bloom with disc flowers, 13 October 2007.
What’s blooming in the area: Roses, Apache plume, silver lace vine, buddleia, canna, datura, Heavenly Blue morning glory, rose of Sharon, narrow leaf globemallow, white sweet clover, yellow evening primrose, pigweed, chamisa, broom snakeweed, winterfat, Tahokia daisy, Maximilian and native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, ragweed, broom senecio; golden, heath, strapleaf and purple asters; black grama grass; red peppers visible from road; baled hay left to dry in field.
What’s blooming in my garden, looking north: Golden spur columbine, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, yellow cosmos, chrysanthemum.
Looking east: Pinks, sweet alyssum, sidalcea, winecup, hollyhock, California poppies, Crackerjack marigolds.
Looking south: Rugosa rose, Crimson Rambler morning glory, Sensation cosmos, zinnia.
Looking west: Russian sage, catmint, ladybells, purple ice plant.
Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragons, petunia, Dahlberg daisy
Inside: Aptenia, zonal geranium
Animal sightings: Quail, ants, bees, grasshopper, flies.
Weather: Rain Monday and Thursday night; windy all day Saturday; ice on my windshield Wednesday morning. Weekly update: Temperatures fell some mornings this past week, and plants responded. Catalpa, locust, and cottonwood leaves began to yellow. More Virginia creeper turned red. My nasturtium, which had only begun blooming with the rain on the 27th, went dormant again.
Last year the dwarf Jewel bloomed from August 22 to October 20. The large, furrowed seeds were planted the same time both years, the second week in May, but this year’s plants emerged May 25, two weeks before last year’s June 13.
When dates vary so widely, I suspect plants are sensitive to environmental conditions. Garden manuals advise the annuals like cool weather, but assume moisture is available. Since the plants were on the same irrigation regimen both years, the failure of the monsoons in August and the lack of atmospheric moisture must have been critical.
Their ancestral homeland is Perú, but by the time the Spanish arrived, tajsa had spread to south central México where it was eaten. In Perú they used the leaves for recuperative baths and to treat scabs. Nicolas Monardes was the first European to describe flor de la sangre in 1569 when he reported the leaves worked on fresh wounds. We now know the genus contains tropaeolum, a mustard oil that has antiviral, antifungal and antibacterial properties.
Monardes was a physician trained at a time when medical training at Alcalá de Henares still included botany. He worked for Phillip II and had interests in the drug and slave trade in Seville, the primary port for the Americas. He used his contacts to obtain seeds and information from returning sailors.
His seeds probably came from some place on the Caribbean coast, simply because Perú was still serviced by ships that went north to Panama once a year when the prevailing south wind was favorable. Cargo was transshipped across the isthmus. However, his medicinal information more likely came from someone returning from Perú.
Some believe Monardes was discussing Tropaeolum minus, the parent of my Jewel, and others that he was describing Tropaeolum major, the more common vining plant. Many believe the current varieties have resulted from so many crosses, species is no longer relevant, and use major for any nasturtium.
In Perú today, major grows wild on the hills above Ariquipa on the coastal side of the Andes at about 700' where goods from the interior were gathered for shipment to Lima before Cape Horn was discovered in 1616. It has naturalized along the south coast and in inland desert counties of California and currently is expanding its range in the Iberian peninsula, probably as minimum temperatures increase.
Whatever its pleasures where it is colonizing, here, in the rio arriba, nasturtiums survive on the frontier of the possible and respond accordingly.
Notes:
Calfora. "Tropaeolum majus L.," available on-line.
Cobo, Bernabe. History of the Inca Empire, 1653, quoted by Hipernatural.
Monardes, Nicolas. Dos libros, el uno que trata de todas las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, que sirven al uso de la medicina, y el otro que trata de la piedra bezaar, y de la yerva escuerçonera, 1569, cited by many and quoted by Hipernatural.
Picó, Belén and Fernando Nuez. "Minor Crops of Mesoamerica in Early Sources (II). Herbs Used as Condiments," Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 47:541-552:2000.
Sobrino Vesperinas, Eduardo, Alberto González Moreno, Mario Sanz Elorza, Elias Dana Sánchez, Daniel Sánchez Mata and Rosario Gavilán. "The Expansion of Thermophilic Plants in the Iberian Peninsula as a Sign of Climate Change" in Gian-Reto Walther, Conradin A. Burga and Peter J. Edwards, "Fingerprints" of Climate Change, 2001.
Van Wyk, Ben-erik and Michael Wink, Medicinal Plants of the World, 2004.
Weigend, M. and H. Forther. "Two New Species of Sisymbrium (Brassicaceae) from Coastal Peru," Brittonia, 51:119-123:1999.
Photograph: Jewel nasturtium with lance-leaf coreopsis seed heads and unwanted grass, 29 September 2007.
What’s blooming in the area: Roses, Apache plume, silver lace vine, buddleia, honeysuckle, canna, datura, Heavenly Blue morning glory, narrow leaf globemallow, white sweet clover, yellow evening primrose, lamb’s quarter, Russian thistle, pigweed, chamisa, broom snakeweed, winterfat, Tahokia daisy, Maximilian and native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, ragweed, gumweed, wild lettuce, broom senecio, golden, heath and purple asters; catalpa beans, hay cut.
What’s blooming in my garden, looking north: Golden spur columbine, hartwegii, nasturtium, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, yellow cosmos, chrysanthemum.
Looking east: Fashion rose, garlic chives, pinks, rock rose, sweet alyssum, winecup, hollyhock, California poppies, Crackerjack marigolds. Looking south: Rose of Sharon, rugosa rose, Crimson Rambler morning glory, Sensation cosmos, zinnia.
Looking west: Caryopteris, Russian sage, catmint, leadplant, ladybells, purple ice plant, Monch aster.
Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragons, petunia, Dahlberg daisy.
Inside: Aptenia, zonal geranium.
Animal sightings: Quail, gecko, ants, bees.
Weather: Rain Sunday, Friday and yesterday, prairie wet deeper than my shovel; frost on car windows Thursday morning; low hanging, full moon before dark on Wednesday.
Weekly update: We finally got rain last week, and now the habitues of late summer have resumed growing, racing to produce seed before it gets too cold.
The rains began last Monday. Áñil del Muerto germinated last Saturday, and put out its second leaves two days ago. There was sun on Monday and Muhly ring grass showed some green that afternoon, as did the black grama and needle grasses. Downy chess grass sprouted in the drive.
Muhly is one of the grasses that colonizes land denuded by overgrazing. It’s palatable in early spring when it’s growing, but goes dormant in the heat of the summer and turns dry and harsh. When the monsoons appear, it regreens to send up short purple culms with seeds that are also unappetizing.
Not only is it well armed against herbivores, but it also adapts to scarce water. The perennial begins as a small round tuft. Over the years, the tuft turns into an inch or two greyish white wide band that expands outward, leaving an ever widening doughnut opening. When it greens up, it begins on the outer faces, where seeds form. In relatively flat areas, its new growth appears on all sides; on more sloping land ring muhly greens on the downhill or wet side first.
When I see it spread across the top of my south facing slope, I wonder if it prevents or abets erosion by stopping or channeling the flow of water. The recent rains have been able to sink into the ground, instead of rolling downhill. The ring, or its shadow, acts as a small reservoir where other seeds plant themselves and its shallow tenacious, fibrous roots hinder the wind.
The 2" high grass’s life cycle is heavily dependent on rainfall. During the droughts of the past few years, it all but died out, and snakeweed invaded its territory. With last year’s rains, it came back in the area where the needle grass had died, but didn’t try to resettle the area with the broom.
Frederic Clemens believed the order of succession on damaged arid lands was annual grasses, short perennial grasses, bunch grasses with ring muhly, and, finally, the original gramas. Others have since found grasslands rarely get beyond the needle and rice grasses, and that factors like weather and soil influence the progression.
Even if my uphill neighbor hadn’t told me he had worked for the ranch that owned this land before he settled on its perimeter, the mere presence of Muhlenbergia torreyi could have told me. I don’t know if it was cattle or sheep, but the remains of animal chutes near the old road bed don’t look wide enough for full-grown cows.
What I don’t understand is why it only appears on the upward side of my house, and why the lower land and much of the surrounding prairie are predominantly needle grass. I’m guessing there could be differences in the quality of the soil, or that area near the ranch perimeter may have been trampled more and the compacted soils less porous, less receptive to water.
It does appear the grass can’t compete with other vegetation, and that it dies out when either the bunch grasses or the scrub seed themselves. It also doesn’t like being crushed and cracks when it’s stepped on during its dormant phases. It would appear to be the first thing to disappear when humans or animals appear. While it seems common enough, in fact, in this area, its period of existence is limited by both humans and nature.
Notes:
Clements, Frederic E. Plant Succession and Indicators: A Definitive Edition of Plant Succession and Plant Indicators, 1928, discussed by Debra P. Coffin, William K. Lauenroth and Ingrid C. Burke, "Recovery of Vegetation in a Semiarid Grassland 53 Years after Disturbance," Ecological Applications, 6:538-555:1996.
United States Department of Agriculture, Forrest Service, Range Plant Handbook, 1937, republished by Dover Publications, 1988.
Photograph: Muhly ring grass, 29 September 2007.
What’s blooming in the area: Roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, buddleia, honeysuckle, canna, datura, bindweed, Heavenly Blue morning glory, cardinal climber, narrow leaf globemallow, white sweet clover, goat’s head, yellow and white evening primrose, purslane, Russian thistle, pigweed, broom snakeweed, winterfat, Tahokia daisy, French marigolds, Maximilian and native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, ragweed, gumweed, golden, heath and purple asters; piñon cones and juniper berries; grapes turning color.
What’s blooming in my garden, looking north: Golden spur columbine, hartwegii, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, yellow cosmos, chrysanthemum.
Looking east: Hosta, garlic chives, large-leaf soapwort, sweet alyssum, winecup, hollyhock, sidalcea, larkspur, scarlet flax, California poppies, pink bachelor buttons, Crackerjack marigolds.
Looking south: Rose of Sharon, rugosa rose, Crimson Rambler morning glory, Sensation cosmos, zinnia.
Looking west: Caryopteris, Russian sage, catmint, leadplant, ladybells, purple ice plant, Silver King artemisia.
Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragons, petunia, Dahlberg daisy.
Inside: Aptenia, zonal geranium.
Animal sightings: Small gecko, stink bugs, ants, bees, grasshoppers, miller moth; turkeys feeding in grass near orchards yesterday.
Weather: At last, some rain on Monday. The storm was severe when I drove through Pojoaque, but the skies were already blue when I got to my turnoff. Water still stood in gullies by the road, and water was flowing in the arroyos I crossed. The road was drying when I started up the rise to my house, but when I got to my drive, water was standing in tire tracks and I could hear the big arroyo running in back. The sun was shining, and a rainbow appeared to the north. When I walked out, even the ground in the bone dry prairie was soft enough to sink into. Storms remained in the area the rest of the week, releasing more water on Thursday and preventing evaporation the other days.
Weekly update: Larkspur is usually described as a hardy, cool season annual. That turns out to be a useful guideline for planting and planning, but doesn’t much explain why I have problems growing it.
Sunset’s garden manual suggests cool season annuals like cool soil and mild temperatures, but doesn’t hazard ideal temperatures. Stokes advises greenhouse owners to prechill larkspur seeds, plant them in soil 45-50 degrees and grow seedlings at 50-54 degreesConsolida, while HPS informs the same growers the optimal germination temperature is 60 degrees and the best growing temperature is 50 degrees.
Seymour told readers hardy plants were those that could be started outdoors, as distinct from a greenhouse or cold frame, and still have enough days to flower. However, he didn’t indicate the number of days required for larkspur, but did recommend planting in May for blooms all summer.
The reason writers may be hesitant to specify the number of days to bloom is that germination times vary from 8 to 15 days for Ann Reilly to a month for June Huston. Peter Loewer had success in 20 days with flowers 100 days after he planted seeds.
Larkspur apparently has not lost its evolutionary sensitivity to climate. Consolida ambigua née Delphinium ajacis are members of the buttercup family, one of the first flowering groups to emerge in the cretaceous age, after North America had separated from Eurasia and temperatures were dropping following the extinction of the dinosaurs some 50 million years ago. As climates continued to change, Ranunculaceae retreated north. Consolida apparently developed in southern Europe, probably in the cooler, mountainous regions of eastern Balkan places like Albania, Bulgaria, and Croatia, and Mediterranean islands like Crete.
Larkspur found its natural environment so favorable, it developed no adaptation strategy for bad years. The seed is only viable for one cycle, which means it must drop and bury itself, then hope winter snow melt fosters it. Wildseed claims 80% of its Rocket Larkspur will germinate; Stokes found its rate was between 74% and 76% in January. Viability declines rapidly after that.
Hot, dry New Mexico is obviously the wrong place for larkspur. I had no success until last year when I dropped Rosalie and Exquisite Rose seeds between perennials in the windy bed shaded by the retaining wall. The seeds I planted last May 20 bloomed from August 30 until killed by frost in late November. This year, I planted seed May 12 that put out its first flower August 29.
My two French grown tetraploids are the only varieties that have prospered here and probably only one of them is, in fact, blooming. I suspect, on the flimsiest of evidence, that it’s the Exquisite because I failed with Rosalie in 1999 and the other was being developed when seedsmen were still creating new offerings by multiple crosses with both Consolida ambigua and possibly other larkspurs. Paeonut found Exquisite Pink in a 1929 catalog.
Sometime, some person somewhere introduced some genetic factor that allows the one cultivar of a winter hungry wildflower to germinate in New Mexico’s late spring, then endure the summer heat to bloom when conditions change in late summer. Here, it turns out, cool season can mean either late spring or early fall.
Notes:
Horticultural Products and Services. Catalog.
Hutson, June and Brian Ward. Annual Gardening, 1995.
Loewer,Peter. Rodale’s Annual Garden, 1988, 1992 edition.
Paeonut. “Introduction Dates for some Annuals,” 2005, available on-line.
Reilly, Ann. Park’s Success with Seeds, 1978.
Seymour, E. L. D. The New Garden Encyclopedia, 1936, 1946 revision.
Stokes Seeds. Catalog.
Sunset. Western Garden Book, edited by Kathleen Norris Brenzel.
Wildseed Farms. Catalog.
Ziman, Svetlana N. and Carl S. Keener. “A Geographical Analysis of the Family Ranunculaceae,” Missouri Botanical Garden, Annals 76:1012-1049:1989.
Photograph: Larkspur, 22 September 2007.
What’s blooming in the area: Roses, silver lace vine, honeysuckle, canna, datura, silver-leaf nightshade, bindweed, Heavenly Blue morning glory, narrow leaf globemallow, white sweet clover, goat’s head, yellow and white evening primrose, purslane, Russian thistle, pigweed, broom snakeweed, chamisa, winterfat, Tahokia daisy, French marigolds, Maximilian and native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, ragweed, hawkweed, cocklebur, Hopi tea, gumweed, golden, heath and purple asters; apricots and unripe grape clusters visible, hay baled yesterday.
What’s blooming in my garden, looking north: Golden spur columbine, hartwegii, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, yellow cosmos.
Looking east: Hosta, garlic chives, large-leaf soapwort, sweet alyssum, winecup, hollyhock, sidalcea, larkspur, scarlet flax, California poppies, pink bachelor buttons, African marigolds, Italian white sunflowers.
Looking south: Rose of Sharon, rugosa rose, Crimson Rambler morning glory, Sensation cosmos, zinnia.
Looking west: Caryopteris, buddleia, Russian sage, catmint, leadplant, ladybells, purple ice plant, Silver King artemisia, Monch aster.
Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragons, petunia, Dahlberg daisy.
Inside: Aptenia, zonal geranium.
Animal sightings: Quail, ladybug in Russian thistle, dragonfly, white butterfly on Tahokia daisy, grasshoppers, ants, bees; gopher leaving mounds.
Weather: Another week of promises, but no lasting rain; last wet ground, September 2, last real rain, August 8.
Weekly update: A week or so ago, The New York Times reported yet more genetic problems have evolved from this area’s isolation between Oñate’s entrada and the advent of the national labs. This time it was drooping eyelids caused by oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy, probably inherited from a wandering French Canadian trapper, and headaches or seizures caused by cavernous angioma.
Our wild sunflowers blooming everywhere right now can also develop genetic idiosyncracies in isolation. All the flowers along the road and filling fields are a uniform, bright yellow. In my yard, many are darker gold, and a few are motley mixes. The difference is the feral plants mate with one another, while I throw down some purchased seed each year.
These two tendencies, the development of isolated populations and the openness to interbreeding have been instrumental in the development of the sunflower as a commercial crop. The cultivated large seed, single stalk plant diverged from the multiple branched one more than 4000 years ago in North America to become a separate subspecies, macrocarpus.
The Spanish took seeds back to Madrid where they spread through Europe. Peter I introduced them to Russia from Holland, and men like Andrey Bolotov, estate manager to Catherine I in the 1700's, found ways to extract oil. A century later, Russian Mammoth was developed, then exported back to the United States in 1893.
Agribusiness only became interested in hybrids when Americans became concerned about saturated fats, cholesterol, and heart problems, but their model for seed development required plants that did not exist. With corn, they removed the male tassels and fertilized the plants with other pollen. They often used pollen from the original plant to reintroduce fertility into the next generation. The composite disks of sunflowers, with both male and female organs, were too small to manipulate.
In 1969, Patrice Leclercq found a species of sunflower, Helianthus petiolaris, with naturally sterile cytoplasm that would combine with annuus. Soon after, Harry Kinman found the gene to restore fertility. Agricultural suppliers began improving farmer’s seed, and geneticists began testing the inherent dangers of that single prairie sunflower father.
Sunflowers for ordinary gardeners remained untouched. In 1987, when Yasuo Gato bought Vincent Van Gogh’s Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers, Thompson and Morgan offered a smaller range of varieties than it had in 1955: one seed plant, Russian Giant, instead of four; one species, Italian White, in place of six; one semi-double, Piccolo; one dwarf, Sahin’s Teddy Bear, one branched sunflower with multicolored flowers, Ernst Benary’s Autumn Beauty, and one with yellow flowers, Sunburst.
People who couldn’t afford $400,000 for a painting and couldn’t summer in Provence, suddenly aspired to the life of Van Gogh and opted for sunflower arrangements. Only things hadn’t change since he rushed to finish work each day by noon before his flowers wilted.
Companies scrambled to produce seeds for the cut flower industry. For them, male sterility meant more than the possibility of a commercial hybrid. It meant little or no pollen to soil table cloths or annoy allergic guests, it meant no heavy oil bearing seeds to bend stems, it meant flowers that had no reason to die.
A number of new branching plants were offered in 1991, but the magic words "little pollen" and F1 did not appear in an American retail catalog until 1994 when Park offered Sakata’s Sunbeam. From the next year on, at least three new varieties have appeared a year as breeders have worked to shorten time to flowering, make them grow in any season, have more disciplined stems, longer vase lives, and more varied colors.
Here in the valley, we don’t think of cutting the flowers; we know them, and their bees, too well from the drive. Instead, we eat them. At least four people this year are growing the traditional Russian plant, but only one other person has colored sunflowers. Meantime, inexorably, the laws of genetics are working each time two pure natives cross-pollinate with the chance some recessive genetic equivalent to drooping eyelid will take hold and spread through the ditches and roadsides.
Notes:
Crites, Gary D. "Domesticated Sunflower in Fifth Millennium B.P. Temporal Context: New Evidence from Middle Tennessee." American Antiquity 58:146–148:1993.
Daitz, Ben. "Heirs to a Rare Legacy in New Mexico," The New York Times, 4 September 2007.
Heiser, Charles Junior. The Sunflower, 1976.
Van Gogh, Vincent. Letter to his brother, Theo, 21 August 1888.
Zhukovsky, P. M. 1964. Kul’turnye Rasteniia i Ikh Sorodichi, 1950; translated by P. S. Hudson as Cultivated Plants and Their Relatives, 1962; cited by Heiser.
Photograph: Three native sunflower plants, three flower colors; 9 September 2007.
What’s blooming in the area: Few roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, honeysuckle, canna, datura, silver-leaf nightshade, bindweed, Heavenly Blue morning glory, narrow leaf globemallow, bouncing Bess, white sweet clover, goat’s head, yellow and white evening primrose, toothed spurge, purslane, lamb’s quarter, Russian thistle, pigweed, broom snakeweed, chamisa, winterfat, Tahokia daisy, French marigolds, Maximilian and native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, goldenrod, horseweed, hawkweed, wild lettuce, golden, heath and purple asters; hay cut, apples and peaches beginning to fall.
What’s blooming in my garden, looking north: Golden spur columbine, hartwegii, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, yellow cosmos, chrysanthemum.
Looking east: Hosta, garlic chives, large-leaf soapwort, sweet alyssum, winecup, hollyhock, sidalcea, larkspur, scarlet flax, California poppies, pink bachelor buttons, African marigolds.
Looking south: Rose of Sharon, rugosa rose, Crimson Rambler morning glory, sedum, Sensation cosmos, zinnia.
Looking west: Caryopteris, buddleia, Russian sage, catmint, leadplant, ladybells, purple ice plant, Silver King artemisia, Monch aster.
Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragons, petunia, Dahlberg daisy; more Sweet 100 tomatoes daily.
Inside: Aptenia, zonal geranium.
Animal sightings: Quail, hummingbird, gecko, yellow butterfly, miller moth, grasshoppers, ants, bees moved to sunflowers.
Weather: Hurricanes in Caribbean but all I saw was heavier dews and colder mornings; last wet ground September 2..
Weekly update: Even someone as inattentive as I was in high school biology knows there’s something extraordinary about an annual that blooms for only two hours a day, yet perpetuates itself in a clay pot with no visible sign of flying insects.
Purslane is one of those weeds I take for granted. I used to see it everywhere in Michigan, where its red stems spread along the ground in interlacing mats. The succulent leaves were never dense enough for a groundcover, but it didn’t get tall and rangy, didn’t clamor over other plants, and didn’t produce vicious seeds.
John Winthrop, Junior, bought an ounce in 1631 in London before leaving for Massachusetts Bay Colony. Since that’s about 280,000 seeds, he must have intended to grow it for food. No doubt it made the trip many times, sometimes in seed packets like Winthrop’s, other times as a stowaway. Purslane’s now spread to south Pacific islands where there are no familiar animals.
Here in the rio arriba, it displaced the native notch leaved purslane which the Santa Clara once minced to release the mucilage for gravy. By 1915, the old world leaves were eaten by both Tewa and Spanish speaking natives, with no nutritional loss. The newcomer contains vitamins A and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as antioxidants and minerals.
My plant arrived with a potted shrub in 2000. This is the first time I’ve seen the hermaphrodite bloom. It needs light, and apparently didn’t get its necessary eleven hours a day until the sun dropped enough to reach the east end of the porch. In other parts of the country it starts blooming in late spring.
The yellow flowers begin to open around ten in the morning to a maximum width of 5/16". Soon after noon the two sepals begin to close, pushing the five petals closer to the male stamens. Within 25 minutes, the petals fold over the stamens, pushing them towards the female pistil. In another 15 minutes, all the flowers are shut into mitres under the sepals.
When the pollen from the stamens falls onto the stigma, the generative cell produces a pollen tube, which reaches down until it pierces the embryo sac formed in the ovary. Cooper says fertilization is complete within three to four hours of contact. When the seeds are mature, the protective cap breaks away, leaving a tan receptacle bearing black seeds, which spill onto leaves or fall to the ground.
The next day, new flowers open in the base of leaf clusters at the ends of stems. In the afternoons, I can see as many as five buds in an axil, some still buds, some developing grain cups. If the season is long, those seeds may produce the next generation of flowers in four to six weeks. If the winters stay warm, it doesn’t die. If a stem breaks off, it may root itself.
The wind may initiate fertilization, but this flower depends on no such fickle occurrence in its brief fluorescence. Portulaca olearcea may be an old maid, but it is rarely a barren one.
Notes:
Cooper, D. C. "Macrosporogenesis and Embryology of Portulaca oleracea," American Journal of Botany 27:326-330:1940.Robbins, William Wilfred, John Peabody Harrington and Barbara Friere-Marreco. Ethnobotany of the Tewa Indians, 1916.Simopoulos, Artemis P. "Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Antioxidants in Edible Wild Plants," Biological Research 37: 263-277:2004.Winthrop, John Junior. Seed list, included in volume 3 of Winthrop papers held by Massachusetts Historical Society; reprinted by Ann Leighton, Early American Gardens, 1970.
Photograph: Purslane, 2 September 2007.
What’s blooming in the area: Apache plume, roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, honeysuckle, canna, datura, silver-leaf nightshade, bindweed, Heavenly Blue morning glory, purple phlox, bigleaf globemallow, bouncing Bess, white sweet clover, perennial sweet pea, goat’s head, yellow and white evening primrose, velvetweed, toothed spurge, purslane, lamb’s quarter, Russian thistle, stickleaf, pigweed, heliopsis, broom snakeweed, chamisa, winterfat, Tahokia daisy, French marigolds, Maximilian and native sunflowers, goldenrod, horseweed, hawkweed, wild lettuce, golden, heath and purple asters.
What’s blooming in my garden, looking north: Golden spur columbine, hartwegii, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, yellow cosmos.
Looking east: Floribunda rose, hosta, garlic chives, large-leaf soapwort, sweet alyssum, winecup, hollyhock, sidalcea, larkspur, scarlet flax, California and Shirley poppies, pink bachelor buttons, African marigolds; raspberries ready to eat.
Looking south: Rose of Sharon, Crimson Rambler morning glory, sedum, Sensation cosmos, zinnia.
Looking west: Caryopteris, buddleia, Russian sage, catmint, leadplant, flax, ladybells, David phlox peaked, purple ice plant, Silver King artemisia, Monch aster.
Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragons, petunia, Dahlberg daisy; more Sweet 100 tomatoes ripening every day.
Inside: Aptenia, zonal geranium.
Animal sightings: Quail, hummingbirds, baby gecko, bees, grasshoppers, ants, squash bug, dragonfly; gopher active again.
Weather: More days passed with futile clouds, thunder and wind; Thursday and today the ground was wet in the morning for the first time since August 6, but plants continue to kill off their leaves to survive the dry spell.
Weekly update: Roses love garlic, or so the old folks say.
In her pioneering collection of folk usages and companion plant combinations, Louise Riotte suggested garlic planted near roses helps fight black spot. In a followup book, Bob Flowerdew repeated that recommendation and added the aroma of the one increases the perfume of the other. Website contributors believe garlic also discourages aphids.
Riotte was more definitive about the benefits of an organic spray made from crushed garlic. Biologists have established the bulb contains an antibacterial non-protein amino acid, allicin. However, the chemical exists in cells as alliin which only converts to allicin when the tissue is damaged. Researchers have also found that oil, almost any oil, enhances the effectiveness of the extract in water.
Scientists are more skeptical about the benefits of passive companionship. Entomologists in Kentucky found garlic chives did nothing to attract or deter Japanese beetles. However, Hsiu-chen Cheng found the same plant increased the number and variety of micoorganisms in soil tainted by PCB’s.
Fortunately, I hoped garlic would solve a simpler problem, the bareness of the wind scourged land above my retaining wall where only pigweed and Russian thistle volunteer. I also tried chives, scallions, onions, and Welsh onions, even Dutch clover, anything that would provide a green cover. Nothing survived a year, although clover and scallions each succeeded one, unrepeatable summer.
My roses have to settle for garlic chives for companionship, because they are the only plants that replenished themselves. The seeds fell from the retaining wall into the bed below where the floribunda Fashion grows protected in a corner with winecup mallows. This year, those blooming stalks are 28" tall, while the seedlings in the original bed are only 16".
The various Alliums are not as interchangeable as I’d hoped, although most contain some alliin. Even those with untrained palates know garlic, onions, and chives taste differently. Garlic chives, also called Chinese chives or Allium tuberosum, are more common in Asian cooking and gardens where, Penny Woodward says, they are cropped with spinach, lettuce, and pak choi.
What specifically separates garlic chive from the other Alliums within the lily family is fairly obvious to those of us who only look at plants. Garlic chive flower heads are larger than those of chives, and white instead of purple. They’re blooming now, instead of early summer. The leaves are flat like garlic, not round like chives or onion, and the entire plant is smaller than garlic or onion, but larger than chives.
Botanists need to go father and isolate binary distinctions. So far, they’ve failed to produce a definitive classification scheme. The Allium genera evolved early. After species separated, members in different lineages made the same adaptions, so now cellular characteristics are shared across evolutionary lines. Garlic chives and chives share five mutations, but are rarely grouped together. Garlic has apparently reverted back to the bulb form of its ancestors. They’ve all lost genome content.
Taxonomy is not my concern, but the bare spot above my retaining wall still is. Alliums are not the answer. However, nature’s decision to salvage the garlic chives has had an unanticipated aesthetic benefit. The five-petaled florets that surround my coral roses look like baby’s breath from a distance, and a bit like sweet alyssum from above. Companionship in beauty, not utility, is enough for me to hope they’ll naturalize there.
Notes:
Cheng, Hsiu-chen. The Study of Phytoremediation of PCP Contaminated Soil, 2005.
Flowerdew, Bob. Good Companions, 1991.
Havey, M. J. "Phylogenetic Relationships among Cultivated Allium Species from Restriction Enzyme Analysis of the Chloroplast Genome," Theoretical and Applied Genetics 81:752-757:1991.
Held, D. W., P. Gonsiska, and D. A. Potter. "Evaluating Companion Planting and Non-host Masking Odors for Protecting Roses from the Japanese Beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)," Journal of Economic Entomology 96,:81–87:2003.
Obagwuand, J. and L. Korsten. "Control of Citrus Green and Blue Molds with Garlic Extracts," European Journal of Plant Pathology 109:221-225:2003, discuses utility of oil.
Riotte, Louise. Roses Love Garlic, 1983.
Skorová, Eva, Jií Fajkus, Marie Mezníková, Kar Yoong Lim, Kamila Neplechová, Frank R. Blattner, Mark W. Chase and Andrew R. Leitch. "Minisatellite Telomeres Occur in the Family Alliaceae but are Lost in Allium," American Journal of Botany 93:814-823:2006.
Van Wyk, Ben-Erik and Michael Wink, Medicinal Plants of the World, 2004, discusses amino acids.
Woodward, Penny. Garlic and Friends, 1996.
Photograph: Garlic chives and Fashion floribunda rose, 1 September 2007.
What’s blooming: Sweet alyssum from seed. 
