Did Sabeata and Esteban Clemente ever meet...Regional history 1669

A little bit of information leads to flights of imagination... 

A native Puebloan born at Abo, Esteban Clemente, served the priests of the mission San Gregorio east of the Manzano Mountains in the mid 1600s. Little is known of his early years, but extant records describe his skills as a linguist, as he spoke not only the five major languages of the Pueblos, but Apache as well, and Spanish, which he wrote as well as spoke.  

 As a young man, he probably was one of the Indians that accompanied a military expedition beginning in Santa Fe led by Captains Diego del Castillo and Hernan Martin in 1650 and a later one with Diego de Guadalajara in 1654 to the three forks of the Concho River (near present day San Angelo, Texas) that revisited the land of the Blue Nun story of the Jumanos from the 1620s. One of the pueblos in the Salinas area was a Jumano town, part of the great Jumano trade circuit from modern day Ojinaga to San Angelo to the Monzanos.

He later served as a trader, meeting Apaches from the Siete Rios area (modern day Artesia to Carlsbad), but also fought with the Spanish against Apaches from the west. Clemente may have been involved since the 1850s as an unsanctioned (by the Spanish) trader with the Jumanos, and may have initialized the friendly contacts with the Siete de los Rios Apaches during those travels. In years of plenty the Apaches traded with both the Pueblos and the Spanish, but during droughts, the Apaches raided the farmers and herdsmen.  He was appointed the Indian governor of the pueblos of the Salinas region east of the Monzanos, entrusted with the salt mining and its transportation that the Puebloans had to perform in tribute to the Spanish. Clemente was allowed to utilize livestock, and also became a carreta caravan contractor, sending men and goods down the Camino Real to Chihuahua.

The clergy, mired in the rigid fundamentalism of the Inquisition, forced Clemente to write and sign a document condemning the kachina ceremonies dances, adding it to further denunciations of the Spanish governor who had proclaimed the dances harmless and could be continued. Severe drought began in 1666 and continued for 4 years. Clemente, like many of the Pueblos, believed that the cessation of the kachina ceremonies had caused the drought, and he recanted his Christian conversion and renounced his allegiance to the Spanish flag. He organized a rebellion, enlisting the aid of the Apaches, and planned to drive all of the horses of the Spanish deep into the Manzanos during the Easter week of 1670, but he was betrayed, tried, and hanged.   Popay used his strategy to successfully oust the Spanish from New Mexico 1680.

In the 1680s the Jumano Sabeata would be referenced in Spanish documents as a leader of the Jumano trading network, who would bring proof of LaSalle along the Texas coast to authorities in Parral, Chihuahua. The longest recorded documented interaction between Sabeata and Spanish authorities occurred during Captain Juan Mendoza’s travels from La Junta de los Rios to the head of the three Concho headwater streams in 1684. In 1683 Sabeata had come to the refugee residences of the displaced northern New Mexicans near present day El Paso and reported a great burning cross over Las juntas de los rios and organized the construction of chapels for Spanish priests to come minister to the people modern Presidio valle . References from the time leave many gaps, making it difficult to understand the evolving politics. 

Sabeata and Clemente probably met, although there is no written record. Clemente was born in the 1620s, and Sabeata in the 1630s, probably less than 10 years apart. Both were men of the second generation of native Americans dealing with the Spanish. Sabeata’s people had seen the decimation of tribes further south, the violence of forced imprisonment as labor in the silver mines that enriched a handful of “penisularios”, the Spanish born priests and administrators that ruled Mexico by force.  Clemente’s grandfather had seen the forceful possession of the northern pueblos, and told the story of the killing of 800 members of the Acoma Pueblo in 1599. Their people did not actively resist the demands of tribute, but studied the Spanish and their ways, and Clemente had proven most adept at mollifying the conquerors.

Hundreds of Puebloans had died. By the summer of 1669 drought burned the landscape for a third year. The seed stored for future planning was gone, taken by the Spanish.,. Trading bands of the Jumano visiting the salinas reported drought conditions at Junta de los rios and along the Conchos, although both had crops maturing in the sandbars and oxbows of the rivers.  They had brought tropical birds to trade for the salt, knowing the Puebloans would want those most special messengers to the gods in this great time of drought. Birds and their feathers helped the Puebloans to communicate with the powers greater than them.

 After they received the salt, the Jumanos travelled to the breeding grounds of the buffalo along the watered eastern side of the Llano Estacado. There, a stampede drive was done (where buffalo would be killed by falling off of a cliff). With the help of bowmen on the back of the handful of horses the Jumanos owned, it was the most efficient way of killing enough buffalo to harvest enough to supply meat for the winter. Clemente arranged for Puebloan hunters to join them on the backs of some of the horses the Spanish had entrusted to him for the benefit of the Pueblo and their economic endeavors. Other Puebloans with access to horses did the same.

To successfully bring meat back, it had to be stored away from the pueblos, and its presence hidden from the Spanish. The Spanish could not learn of the efforts, nor accidently discover the activity during any military patrols. Clemente arranged for porters from several pueblos to meet the hunters near the pictographs at a location known in modern times as the Rocky Dell pictograph site, near the modern Texas state line, along the escarpment of the Llano Estacado just south of the Canadian River.  The hunters used travois behind both dogs and horses to haul the dried meat and hides to a meeting place not far from Rocky Dell.

At Rocky Dell is a pictograph of a horned serpent, Awanyu, the guardian of waters. The Puebloans performed a four day ceremony at Rocky Dell in honor of Awanyu. The priests of Clemente’s pueblo had liked his suggestion holding a ceremony far from Spanish influence, and  not allowing anything of Spanish influence to be present even in camp – not even the horses, or metal lance and arrow points. Apricot and apples would not be allowed, nor the sprouted wheat atole that many had grown to consider a staple.

Awanyu had come with the stories and seeds of the different varieties of corn many generations before – as the food moved north, so did the stories, and the understanding of basic farming techniques, and the rituals needed for agricultural success. The priests of Paquime had traveled far and wide, replacing the old stories of Kokopelli and his podcorn, with tales of Awanyu and the power over water. People of knowledge must teach, for it ensures the improving survival of following generations.

 Prayer sticks ornamented with feathers were used in prayer. An intricate structure of symbolism grew around the different species of birds, including those from far away that were traded for when special prayers were needed. The colors and directions from where the birds came were important, too.  

As farming and trading people, the Puebloans devoted much of their time in keeping the world holy and moving in harmony. Puebloan communities are divided into summer and winter moieties, with each group in charge of their season’s rituals, as well as the government of village life during those six months. Each clan in the village had different roles in the rituals, and only that clan possessed the knowledge of its part in the rituals.

 Since the Spanish had come, the “corn maidens” had left. The long drought was the apocalyptic end to 70 years of horror. Thousands of people had died, not only from war and enslavement, but disease and now starvation, too.  The ritual at Rocky Dell had been discussed for a year or more.

Roadrunners are the quintessential arid-lands bird. Almost everybody recognizes its shape. Most people have seen the slapstick cartoon that is a modern mythological icon. Beep-beep!

A roadrunner has claimed ownership of some property south of Midland. The bird's great-great grandfather claimed the same territory in the early 1980's, but the family moved away when humans built more houses in the area. This descendant is especially intrepid.

My wife Deborah and I often sit outside, enjoying the plants, birds, butterflies, clouds, dragonflies, lizards and box turtles. A dozen sitting places are scattered among the two acres of plantings of native and adapted species. The roadrunner has joined us several times, sitting next to us on an empty chair. He jumps up, intently inspects us, then turns to survey his surroundings. Sometimes he polishes his beak on the arm of the chair, and often shakes himself, fluffing his feathers and preening.

When he gets down to continue his meanderings, he will boldly scamper within 6 inches of our feet. It may be that the roadrunner remembers an early encounter when I caught a big grasshopper and tossed it to him, whereupon he promptly seized it, whacking it over an old mesquite branch lying on the ground. It could be that the roadrunner is "habituated" to us.

Roadrunners really make a BRRRT sound, not a beep. The sound is quite expressive and is produced by the rapid clacking of its beak. The roadrunner (nicknamed Magoosh in honor of a Lipan Apache that once traveled across the Llano Estacado many times) loves to startle our felines and us by sneaking up, then loudly calling BRRRT!

And there is other "intraspecific" communication between Magoosh and us. We are firmly convinced, for example, that Magoosh summons us to come examine some of his finds. He will BRRRRT until we show up, and then walk around the creature or object, alternately cocking his tail and lowering it, raising his head feathers to a bristly crest and then flattening the feathers back down. One evening he fussed at a fox until we showed up, and then continued his exploring as the fox hunkered down to avoid being seen.

The BRRRRT is also often an expression of irritation. The cats rush the roadrunner, ignorant of its deadly beak. The roadrunner sometimes sees the rush as a game, staying just out of reach of the cats, as he leads them around for ten minutes or more. He will finally fly a short distance, ending the game. Other times he flies into a tree and BRRRTs over and over, obviously cussing out the cats.

Another time, Magoosh seemed to banish me when I unwittingly interrupted him. He had been BRRRRTing on a post overlooking a woodpile near a shed. I had come out to fetch a tool from the shed, whereupon the roadrunner landed on the tin roof right above my head with a resounding and startling CLUNK! Had he spied a mouse exploring the woodpile and become upset my presence sent it scurrying for shelter?

Roadrunners must get bored. Follow one at a distance that does not bother it, and watch. On a ten-minute walk at the arboretum, Magoosh amused himself with a number of found items. First he pulled a wad of packing string from where it had been tucked into a one-gallon plant pot. He pulled it this way and that, as if trying to unravel it or to find its end. Giving up, he moved on to a strand of baling wire stapled to a post. He yanked on it, but it did not come loose.

So on he went, to a stack of unusable wood. A windstorm had snapped a girdled mesquite twig onto the pile. The roadrunner picked the twig up and walked up and down the woodpile, as if trying to decide a better place for the twig. Finally he put it down at the end of the pile.

A few feet further along, the roadrunner found an old steel wool pad that a packrat had dropped after stealing it from a trash bin. The roadrunner held it, peered this way and that, then carried it several feet away, leaving it in the middle of the path.

Roadrunners eat snakes, lizards (including horny toads), insects and smaller birds. Some play with tomatoes and may actually eat them, but Magoosh plucks them from the vine and carries them around, twice leaving one in a shallow reflecting pool that also serves as a bird watering hole.

A snake can be a difficult meal for a roadrunner to handle. A 2-foot snake can take an hour or more to choke down. Magoosh's great-great grandfather took his snakes to near the top of the windmill, where he sat, dangling the tail of the snake from his mouth, occasionally gulping another inch or tow until it all disappeared.

On a late afternoon walk, Magoosh's human observers found him peering into a clump of grass. As we walked up, the roadrunner sidled five feet away, turning to watch. The cat who accompanied us batted the grass, revealing a 2-foot kingsnake. As the cat continued slapping at the snake, the roadrunner returned to join us in intently watching the cat play with the snake.

Finally the cat noticed Magoosh and leapt at him. Deborah caught the cat and I grabbed the snake, and tossed the snake to the roadrunner. Frustrated, the cat squirmed out of her arms and chased the roadrunner again, while the snake slithered off. Deborah caught the cat again; the roadrunner returned to where he had last seen the snake and searched for another ten minutes, but to no avail.

When a roadrunner catches a sparrow, it first kills the smaller bird with the vise-like grip of its beak. Then it throws the bird to the ground, over and over and over, until the bird is a shapeless wad of feathers. Then it gulps the sparrow whole.

Many birds mob a predator by hovering above it and fussing excitedly. Roadrunners are hassled by mockingbirds and hummingbirds. Both swoop over the roadrunner's head, fussing and fussing. The roadrunner ducks away from the mockers, but ignores the hummers, who will sometimes follow a roadrunner fifty feet or more, hovering over its head, as if attached by kite string.

As a roadrunner patrols its territory, different gaits and postures reveal its intentions. A roadrunner traveling from one area to another trots upright, its head facing forward and held high. When it hears an unknown sound, it bends forward with its neck, head and tail a few inches off the ground and legs bent so that it seems to be scooting along. When actively hunting, each time it cocks its tail or raises its crest, a person can witness its thinking process.

"Hmmm, I hear a noise," as it raises its crest. It listens, and hearing more, raises its tail up tautly.

"Aha, there it is," and the crest goes down while the tail lowers part way.

"Whoops -- where did it go?" The crest pops up again. The bird tilts its head, listens and observes.

"Yeah!" The roadrunner stands still, stiff-legged, body tilted forward as a lizard comes into view. The lizard does not recognize the motionless roadrunner as a threat, and comes almost underneath the bird, when "WHACK!" The roadrunner juggles the lizard and with a toss of its head, down it goes.

Roadrunners are so cool!

 Magoosh spent the winter with us. Each night during the season he jumped to the lowest branch of an Afghan pine and carefully made his way to a fork three feet from the tip of the branch. Nestled between two pinecones, he stuck his long tail straight up in the air.

Often Magoosh would go to bed a full hour before dark. His preferred branch overhangs a lath house. A deck, gas grill, and sitting area are also located in the lath house. Magoosh, however, was undeterred by frequent human evening activity. A person could stand directly under him, and talk to him but only receive a mere blink of an eye in response. Candle lanterns, citronella oil torches, party conversation, and raucous music did not disturb him.

When the fierce storms of March whipped the tree into a dancing frenzy, Magoosh rode each gust with aplomb. A thunderstorm with explosive lightning and small hail did not send him scurrying for cover. The next morning he sat on the lath house singing as the sun rose.

Everyone should watch and hear a Roadrunner sing. The song is pleasant, somewhat similar to the cooing of a dove. It has a deep resonance that can be heard for an amazing distance on a quiet morning -- maybe as much as a mile. A Roadrunner puts his all into the song, looking like a drunk with dry heaves, head bent over almost to the ground, or branch, or lath house roof. The entire body of a singing Roadrunner swells and falls with the heaves of each note.

Over the past few months, a pattern to Magoosh’s days was noticed. The first activity of the morning involved going to the roof of the work shed. There, he would turn his back to the sun, lifting his feathers until black skin could be seen on his back through the soft hair-like down. Local folks have seen Roadrunners lift their back feathers to sunbathe when temperatures are below zero!

After an hour of quiet watchfulness, Magoosh usually flies sixty to eighty feet to a trail leading to the southwest. Along this trail is a large brushpile which is carefully stacked to give plenty of protection to roosting birds. Two Spotted Towhees, two Canyon Towhees, 25 White Crowned Sparrows, a Lincoln’s Sparrow, and 30 English Sparrows spent every night of the winter inside the brushpile, as does a dapper White-Throated Packrat. Magoosh hunts late risers from the brushpile, hoping to start the morning with a substantial breakfast of surprised sparrow.

Most mornings, though, the sparrows are expecting him, so he trots on down to the row of Tallgrass that creates a windbreak to the west. Another 75 sparrows of at least two species spend the night in the tall bamboo-like grass, along with several Mockingbirds, Pyrrhuloxias and Curved-Bill Thrashers. Magoosh skulks along both sides of the 150-foot long row, sometimes standing motionless for long periods, and other times taking one step every few seconds, creeping along unnoticed by his prey.

During the midday hours, Magoosh is rarely seen. He probably hunts away from the Arboretum . A lady that lives a third of a mile away has reported that a Roadrunner visits her. Is it Magoosh? Or does he take a siesta?

Between three and four p.m., two gallons of grain and three gallons of black sunflowers seeds are placed in three feeding locations in the arboretum. 75 Whitewinged Doves, 40 Mourning Doves, 10 Bobwhite, 10 Scaled Quail, 50 House Finches, 20 Pyrrhuloxias, 6 Cardinals, and other assorted avian visitors feed in waves until the light is too dim for humans to reference color. Magoosh returns and visits the feeding areas.

His evening hunting technique is similar to that of predators that hunt herds. At this time he rushes the feeding area, focusing his efforts on a smaller bird that is sick, old, injured, or for some other reason slow to react, providing him with a belly-busting early supper. He first crushes the bird with his beak, then throws the body on the ground repeatedly before gulping it whole. This behavior must tenderize the meat for digestion.

Although most of his bird hunting ends in failure, Magoosh is an omnivore, and is, therefore, afforded a variety of alternatives. As he ambles along the trails of the arboretum, he stops every few feet and sticks his bill under a grass clump or turn over a hunk of cottonhull mulch or snap at something flying from the ground. Even in winter, a number of insects are active on warm days. Midland’s butterfly lady, Joann Merritt, reported seeing a Roadrunner catching and eating paper wasps as they came to standing water. (Spicy food? Like jalapenos to humans?) Several times local naturalists have noticed Loggerhead Shrikes using a hiker as a bird dog. Early settlers noticed Roadrunners doing the same, paralleling a horse and rider to catch insects, rodents, and birds thereby disturbed.

Magoosh visits people as they work or walk about the garden. It sometimes appears that he is merely curious, for he comes within a few feet to peer up at the humans. “Introduce me to the newcomer,” his actions seem to say. Other times he gives a BRRRRRRT, as if to startle prey hiding between himself and the humans into rashly revealing its presence.

On a warm sunny afternoon in late February, I left the door open to enjoy the pleasant fresh air as I worked on a computer project. Totally engrossed in manipulating images to create a display for work, I was startled by a BRRRRRRT outside. Magoosh stood within 10 feet of the doorway, dangling a Southern Prairie Lizard from his mouth. When he saw that he had my attention he began to move his tail in a broad circle. A curious roadrunner raises and lowers his tail as he investigates. As Magoosh rotated his tail a number of times he lowered and raised his crest and tilted his head. After a minute or two, he trotted off.

A few days later as I drove through the gate I saw Magoosh hop onto a railroad tie fence and run along the top all the way to its end next to the road. As I pulled to a stop, he began to rotate his tail again. Sure enough, he had another lizard. This time, Deborah was at home. I ran into the house and brought her back out. Magoosh had moved to the shade of some New England Asters with the lizard, but as soon as he saw us come back out, he moved into the sun and and once again began rotating his tail again. “See, he really is showing me that lizard!”

In the workshed, there are several chairs that offer a shady rest spot while taking a break from gardening. Magoosh often visits the shed at the same time as we do. He wanders in, inspects the people, then hops to the top of a halfwall partition to settle down. At such a time, he sits five feet from us, his back to us, relaxing until his chest meets his feet. Sometimes he would polishes his beak on the wood beneath him, in the same pattern as a person sharpening a knife on a whetstone.

In the shed is an unusual mirror that was found where some disgusting slob had dumped household belongings along a dirt road near the house. (We have recycled a number of things scavenged from the leavings of people that consider the whole world a dump. We also haul their crud to the City Solid Waste Facility.) This mirror is constructed of 15 smaller rectangular mirrors glued to a heavy backing. Stacks of wood, stacks of pots, stacks of coffee cans, and a couple of large buckets of dry wood for the chiminea are stored in the shed. The mirror had been leaned against a wall on the ground.

Magoosh was seen carrying a lizard into the shed, and when followed, he was observed wagging his tail in the big presentation circle. Upon closer examination, he could be seen peering into the mirror, tilting his head back and forth, and watching his reflection. He then placed the lizard in front of the mirror and ran off. We examined the lizard and found that it was really a stick. Around the lizard-stick were another dozen things that Magoosh had brought to his reflection – a number of other twigs, and clumps of cotton from the gin trash. It appeared he thought that his reflection was a potential mate and he was presenting nesting material to “her.”

Worried that his misdirected affections would circumvent Magoosh’s urge to participate in the springtime activities that captivates the entire natural world, we turned the mirror face down.

But what might have been a sad story now has a happy ending. Following a couple of weeks of mournful singing as if pining for a lost love, two roadrunners have been seen gathering sticks before disappearing into the dense branches of a pinyon. One is Magoosh, who performs somersaults in the air as he catches hummingbird moths nectaring on the anisicanthus. The other is smaller, skinny, and skittish. Her name is Lozen.

The grackles of doom bring terror to the neighborhood. Great-tailed grackles are avian Hell’s Angels with their long tails cocked with insolent attitude. A heavy metal Goth music swamps the mind as they wheel into view overhead. As minions of random death, their actions are incomprehensible. They jerk baby birds from nests and toss them to the ground to bake in the scouring gusts of summer’s heat.

Hatred is an easy emotion. Anger bubbles up at the sight of the helpless devastated and a country person wishes to grab the household shotgun and obliterate each grackle as it appears. The sound of a grackle is a slimy, sucky, and slurpy non-musical blackboard grating wreck-of-the-nerves noise. The hairs on a person’s back stand up and goose pimples pop up and an uncontrollable shiver shakes a listener.

What if the gut instinct is not followed? What if the grackle is not shot on sight? Is there an ecological role they perform?

“They are not native, they only moved here twenty years ago,” the local birdwatchers report. “The habitats they have established themselves within are not native either,” an ecologist answers. “The sewage water swamps, the ranch pond cattails, or the city run-off retention reservoirs full of reeds are not natural either. Nor are the forests of the city. If it were not for man, the grackles would not have come.”

The native habitat of Great-tailed Grackles is coastal swampland. Miles of swampy estuaries were once filled with alligators, grackles, mosquitoes, crabs, and red-winged blackbirds among other less common animals. Grackles had to compete with the blackbirds for nesting space in the cacophonous smelly maelstrom of life.

Much of the habitat has been destroyed over the last century because is so unwelcoming to human visitation and seems to be such a waste of real estate. Coastal swamps are filled in to build condos or deepened and cleared for marinas. Only recently has our society become aware those coastal estaurine habitats are where most near-shore marine fishes and shellfish are born and nurtured. By necessity grackles learned of new habitats, and began opportunistically adapting.

The drive for survival is an awesome force of life within some species. Remember the coyote – hated by every sheepherder and chicken farmer and shot at every chance for over a hundred years, and what has happened? Now coyotes have spread to almost every state in the continental U.S. and now live in the vacant lots of Los Angeles and a hundred other cities.

Grackles, Starlings, English Sparrows, Cowbirds, and Pigeons are other aggressive avian associates that swarm into spaces humans create for themselves. The natural world often creates a teeming landscape filled with millions to billions of a number of species. Think of the plains of Africa and its incredible diversity until recently, or think of the plains of the U.S. in the early 1800’s with millions of buffalo, billions of prairie dogs, and thousands of wolves, black-footed ferrets, and even bear. Now the natural world is filled with another teeming landscape – billions of humans with millions of birds serving as familiars in the new regime.

The word “familiar” is selected purposefully in the previous sentence. Witches and shamans sought to positively influence their agrarian or aboriginal society’s psychic wellbeing using sophisticated symbolic psychology. Their “familiars” accompanied them – think of Merlin and his owl, for example.

We modern humans create an environment that reflects our maturity as a culture. We are like teen-agers, wanting everything our own way, poorly disciplined in our urges, and not planning our next action with our society foremost in our mind.

We, as a society, are all witches, as they are usually portrayed and as most people believe, as creepy negative manipulators. Our familiars are grackles, starlings, English Sparrows, cowbirds, and pigeons. Ghettos, barrios, and slums are a true reflection of the maturity of our society.

To me, grackles represent the squalor of inner-city poverty, of trash blowing in the wind, of the endless strip-malls in endless cities that abut each other on both the East and West Coasts, the countless boring car chase scenes on TV and all the other negatives of urban life any person can elucidate without end when depressed and disgusted. Grackles represent lawlessness, not wildness.

This has all been a preface to a continuance of the story of Magoosh. I needed to provide some background.  This is another chapter of his story.

When we saw Magoosh, our spirits lifted. “HI, big guy!” we would exclaim, and we often went “BRRRT” at him so he knew we were trying to talk his language. He demonstrated a fearless friendliness to us. We were introduced and welcomed into a wonderful and unusual relationship with a wild creature. It has been an incredible experience.

In a recent Discover magazine, an author wrote of individual wild animals that visited researchers at various locations and developed personal relationships with individual humans. The creatures are not pets, but are emissaries from the wild. When an animal acts out of the norm the people watching and interacting with it are stimulated to think and redefine what that animal represents to them. The researchers reported epiphanies like those that we were blessed by. “It surprises me totally that some wild animals are capable of accepting a human as a neighbor,” Deborah said. “This is the first time that the natural world allowed me within, beyond being an observer.”

A part of what surprises people is their own receptivity. Modern-day humans aggressively blunder through the natural world. The critters and plants respond defensively and bite, scratch, claw, sting, and poison. As a result, the natural world is seen as an adversary, something to be controlled forcibly. A different way can be learned by watching, listening, and analyzing. Wild creatures strain to be as aware as possible, to know what each sound means, be it near or far, loud or soft. Wild creatures have a holistic perception of their surroundings.

Compared to wild creatures, modern-day humans are totally self-absorbed and self-centered. Our society is built upon that ideal of supreme individualism. We have created a Golden Age. Our technology is powerful beyond any illusory magick ever conceived, but our society does not teach us of the magic and wonder possible by becoming receptive to our surroundings.

Magoosh opened our eyes to possibilities. The natural world can reach inside we humans and bring us to a marveling stillness, full of heartfelt aching awe. At the beginning of this section, an astute reader would have immediately noticed its tense. One day the Grackles came and screeched in the tree tops, and soon smashed eggs and baby birds were tossed to the ground. We reacted with anger, and rocks were thrown and firecrackers popped to scare the grackles. One grackle must have been injured, for we found it dead, floating in the pond facedown. We had killed in an anthromorphosizing self-righteous selfishness. “ We were defending the other birds, ” we told ourselves.

The next morning we found Magoosh dead on the County Road a quarter mile away from the house and his and Lozen’s nest. On his daybreak hunt a driver purposefully ran him down. (He was too smart to be run over by accident.) The death of this wild creature affected us deeply. We cradled his limp form lost to death’s finality and carried him to a place of burial. We honored him using Native American sensibilities by burning a smudge stick on his grave.

Lozen had to take over all the duties of the nest, so we decided to help her. We set pit-fall traps and caught lizards, and placed dog food and a lab mouse in a big tank under her nest. Lozen rejected our offerings. She sneaks away the back way when we approach the nest, and if she sees us on the trail she immediately darts into the brush. Her shyness heightens our memory of Magoosh's friendliness, and makes his loss even more poignant.

Roadrunners symbolize something else to me, now. Roadrunners represent perception shifts. As a person matures, often something happens that totally reorganizes their perception of the world. People that once seemed unfeeling suddenly are perceived as disciplined, for example. Sometimes learning comes hard in a struggle, and the new results are resisted.

I think I must use a story to illustrate the process.

I stretched out in the shade of the nogalito, looking down the draw. My eyes were at the level of the dry gravel streambed, so that the straight run of the draw seemed to extend a great distance. Heat waves helped the illusion, for after a certain distance, the image of everything beyond melted.

I was not really looking at anything. I had been pouring water on my head, flapping my shirt to speed the drying of the sweat. I rubbed at the sting of sweat salt in my eyes. Heat is inescapable, not like cold. Clothes can warm any cold. Nothing stops heat.

Finally I began to cool. I idly stared downstream. A dark four legged animal materialized in the heatwaves. The image twisted and shimmied until I could not tell if the animal was still, or moving toward me. I tried to focus my eyes better.

After a minute or two I could discern between its movements, and those of the heatwaves. No cow or horse was supposed to be in this pasture. Was it a deer? A javelina? Why would it be out in the heat of the noon?

The heat on my skin and the contortions of the image gave startling birth to the illusion that I was inside of a fire, looking out.

The image waited, except for the quavering of heat. I waited. Everything seemed to wait. I glanced away, to the sky. The glare of the sun normally washes out the blue sky in midsummer.

My eyes returned to the image. It separated, became two shapes that danced in solemn rhythm, bowing and promenading. In my mind refrains in a minor key revealed an interior fear. I watched the images dance, turning this way and that, hopping into the air, and then returning to the earth as if sinking into jello. Was it two bears? Two mountain lions? Fear rippled through me.

The two figures became Chihuahuan ravens, suddenly snapping into focus as they launched themselves into the midday glare out of the mirage. The leading raven carried a bloody morsel in his beak. Squawking and furiously trying to steal the meat, the second raven herded the first swiftly out of sight.

By the force of his personality, Magoosh redefined wildness. Wildness is not the fear that causes non-domesticated creatures to run at the sight of a human. Wildness means living up to possibilities. Fears limit most creatures, as well as we humans. Magoosh transcended a roadrunner’s normal fear. Can we overcome our fears? Can I over come mine? I may be able to take another baby step forward someday, thanks to Magoosh. I hope I can honor his memory by doing so.

finding new plants for the county

Amateur naturalists living in Midland County have been keeping local records of native flora and fauna for over fifty years. In the 1950’s, a number of these folks formed the Midland Naturalists to study the natural world of the southern Llano Estacado. Sightings of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians have been recorded over the years, and checklists of these organisms have been published in the organization’s newsletter, The Phalarope. Plant records began to be kept in the 1960’s.

With years and years of such data collection, one might think it would be difficult to find new birds, mammals, plants, or other organisms to add to the checklists. Surprisingly enough, something new gets added every year. Already this year, three plants of interest have been added.

The first was actually unknowingly discovered last year when Deborah and I were out cruising county roads a week or two after a rare rainfall. Curious about which plants were continuing to survive the drought and desperate to see a wildflower, we puttered along a dirt road at 10 miles an hour. Each time a different species was spotted in bloom, we jumped out of the car and did the “I don’t care if it IS purple nightshade” dance.

Soil in the southeast part of the county is quite different from the sandy soil that is found in town. Gravel ridges meet outcroppings of Edwards Limestone and are dotted by salt playas, with their attendant loess blowout silts.

Close to the former Stephenson Schoolhouse site and the old caliche pit nearby, we spotted a rhizomatous Artemisia with 8-inch stalks which we believed to be a smallish specimen of Artemisia ludoviciana. Loosening the soil around one part of the plant, we separated a single stalk with six inches of rhizome, which we then placed in a plastic bag with wet paper towels.

A year after transplanting the stalk, this Artemisia has spread into a broad clump, though the stalks remain 8-10 inches tall. With the help of several definitive works on native Texas plants, we identified this “new” species as Artemisia carruthii. Correll and Johnson’s Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas says it is rarely found in the High Plains of Texas, but is abundant in the Davis Mountains. It has proven to be easily propagated from rhizome cuttings.

This spring, we went for another drive after 10 inches of rain flooded the same part of the county. Along the “Salt Lake” road that leads to Midkiff, we noticed a line of Four-Wing Saltbush (Atriplex canescens) along the fence that seemed somehow different. Saltbush is gray and sprawly, and is often covered with white galls or golden seeds. Though it can be quite attractive, few people use it as an ornamental specimen due to its “ugly” periods.

The branches of this Saltbush “hedge” formed tight silver wands that caught our eye and beckoned us to stop. We walked to the fence and noticed that the "Saltbush" was rhizomatous, had germinated in the road gravel which was mounded at the base of the fence, and had spread into the gyp loess of the pasture. We took a cutting for later botanical classification and to determine if it could be propagated.

The absence of blooms proved to be a tough obstacle to our taxonomic efforts as we flipped through various books in semi-random fashion. One of Barton Warnock’s books on flowers of the Trans-Pecos region of Texas included a close-up photo of a plant called Escobilla (Buddleja scordioides) with leaves that appeared to be identical to our mystery plant. Escobilla is kin to Woolly Butterfly Bush, which is sold in local nurseries. Correll and Johnson listed the range for this plant as western Edwards Plateau and the Trans-Pecos region. The cutting never developed roots, and fatally wilted after several days of tender care.

Following our recent May/June rains, we ventured again to the same area on a spur-of-the-moment-eat-the-burgers-in-the-car escapade to check on our presumed Buddleja, stopping on the way to grab a couple of pots and a shovel. This time, we found the hedge in bloom and, after photographing it, collected several diminutive plants.

Next, we drove a few miles away to check on our Artemisia. Sure enough, the lone plant was still there, flourishing with other drought-hardy natives. Walking along the fenceline, enjoying bright clumps of Purple Ground Cherry (Quincula lobata), we noticed yet another species of Artemisia.

Several patches grew among the rocks at the edge of the caliche pit, one of which extended outside the fence. We carefully removed a tiny corner of the clump, which seemed to be reproduced by offsets. The green leaves with silver undersides create attractive contrast along the plant's 18-inch stalks. Using Correll and Johnson's genus key, we determined that this third "new" plant is Artemisia bigelovia, which is listed as rare in the Trans-Pecos region and High Plains. Though found in "wild" settings, are these three plants truly "native" to Midland County?

The Buddleja is definitely not. Its seeds probably arrived in the load of gravel that was dumped along the road at the base of the fence where we found it. We cannot remember the last time that road was worked on, but the thriving colony has probably been growing there for twenty or thirty years.

The two Artemisias may be native, but it is suspicious that the only place the plant can be found (that we know of) is along the road near the caliche pit. Our guess at present is that both are introduced species. The means of introduction, however, is another question. A dozen species of plants that have been discovered growing in Midland County more than likely arrived in hay, for they are always found near old holding pens, feeding areas, and other areas of livestock concentration. The Artemisias may have found their way here in the tire treads of trucks coming to haul caliche away from the pit.

Why should anybody care about these questions? Well, in our case, we love our homeland, we love plants, and we love unraveling a mystery! Someday, though, we may be forced into a 12-step program to ease this "addiction!"

roadrunner and hawk

Different birds continue to take up residence  this winter. Lesser Goldfinches and Pine Siskins have become the most recent regulars. This has been the best-ever winter bird population. My “attention range” is sometimes jolted by the behaviors performed by these birds. At such times I feel as if I am being told to become aware and to take notice.

Two Sharp-shinned Hawks swoop by. They play for a part of each sunny day. Their game is simple: chase the leader, then become-the-leader when the first leader is tagged. Spectacular aerobatics are the norm. How can they careen among the many branches of the trees at thirty miles an hour? I closed my eyes, thinking about Sharp-shinned Hawks (or Sharpies, as birders call them).

A friend called to report two roadrunners walking up to an accipter (Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawk are our two common "accipter" hawks -- or small bird-eating hawks). The two roadrunners circled the hawk several times. From a distance of two feet, they peered intently at the hawk as it ate a sparrow.

Later a homeowner called me, worried about her Corgi and its attraction (as food) to the little raptor. Sharpies are bird hunters. Their presence means that a person is doing a grand job feeding the birds of the neighborhood. The presence of the feeder itself tells the hawk to stop and see if food is on hand. If there is food, the hawk settles down to wait. A chance for a snack will be along eventually.

A circle of feathers on the ground surrounding a fresh gizzard means that a hawk has dined. Our urban forests are not appropriate homes for many predators, but even a human constructed ecosystem needs the checks and balances they can provide. House kitties are inefficient hunters. Feral cats are much better at their craft. They may leave the feet and sometimes the head, but the evidence is usually gulped. An overabundance of feral cats can sometimes diminish the bird population of an urban forest, but Midland’s Animal Control responds immediately if notified about such a situation.

Yesterday, Deborah and I watched a drama presented by a Sharpie and a Roadrunner. The Roadrunner (who we believe to be Lozen’s son) loves to hunt in a grove of sapling soapberries in front of the house. Mo-way possesses a boldness that reminds us of Magoosh. An understory of Aster texana and Ruellia nudiflora struggles in the dry, southwest winds that the grove will someday help to slow. We have repeatedly seen him kicking around in the soapberry leaves that have become trapped by the stiff bare stems of the aster. A lizard must have hidden there not long ago and, remembering that meal, Mo-way now checks the mini-habitat on each of his midday patrols.

Yesterday, the Sharpie arrived first. It swooped in and, after a quick “feather-realignment” wiggle sat motionless, its body arched with alertness. A few minutes later, the Roadrunner came sauntering down the trail. It was “dwaddling” (and yes, I am going to use that “word”. To me, it means meandering along without a care in the world. It cannot be found in a dictionary, but so what? Should language be restricted to what is in the dictionary? Of course not! Humans love to alter language to fit the moment. It is such wonderful play!)

The Sharpie swooped down and Deborah growled in her toughest voice, unheard by the combatants on the other side of the window. “I am going to go out and rescue Mo-way if the Hawk catches him!” I did not doubt her conviction.

The hawk made a deep swoop while the roadrunner took a correspondingly purposeful sidestep, making me think of a bullfighter stepping out of the path of a charging bull at the very last moment. The hawk returned to its perch for a moment before launching itself again. Once more, the roadrunner effortlessly avoided the hawk, without the need to hurry, or to move more than a few inches. This time, the hawk did not return to his tree, but whirled around the Vitexes and Littleleaf Sumacs, looping back to surprise the roadrunner. Mo-way dove under the Agarita, panic in his step.

The Sharpie flew to the Desert Willow fifty feet away. It wiggled on its branch, unzipping and zipping its feathers in antsy, jittery posturing. The roadrunner pecked in the Turk’s Cap litter beneath the Agarita for a minute, and then wandered absentmindly out into the Asters and Ruellia 5 feet away from the hawk. He was perfectly conscious of the hawk, we decided, for he seemed to deliberately pick a direct route to the hawk’s most advantageous attack path. “This is play,” I guessed.

We were not surprised when the hawk again plummeted down, nor was the roadrunner when the hawk seemed to chase it into the pasture. In fact, though he was aware of the undaunted hawk’s “pursuit,” Mo-way seemed to have become bored with the exchange, busying himself with the resumption of his hunting activities in the brush. When Mo-way began to fly after something moving the pasture (a smaller bird, perhaps?) the hawk abandoned the chase.

  the

The paisano flapped twice and sailed over one of the largepad prickly pears whose predecessors were brought by the cattle drives of the 1930’s. He lit, and began running with all jets burning, darting around a second, a third, and then a fourth prickly pear. The hawk sailed over the roadrunner’s new game, but kept on going to land on the Burr Oak near the pond. The chaparral halted, raising and lifting his tail with exultant, athletic vigor.

Whap! “I think the hawk just spanked the roadrunner with its wing!” This maneuver stopped Deborah from intermittently marveling out loud -- “this is incredible, I can’t believe this, oh my gosh” -- as we moved from window to window to follow the action. Mo-way flew off into the mesquite pasture to the south, away, from the rudeness of the hawk.

I scratched my head. “Hmmmmm… two predators in conflict -- maybe what we just saw was competition for the entire  grove… and what is probably a daily dance between the two birds, half in fun, half-serious. Both must hunt here, since the menu features 70 house finches, 125 English Sparrows, and another 50 birds of 15 different species.”

“I wish they would specialize in English Sparrows exclusively. Have you seen that those dang little potty machines are now roosting between the cabin and the cottage?” Smiling, Deborah proceeded to give me a big hug that affirmed our just-shared vision of holiness. We had been given the chance to see the natural world performing as it does unseen so many zillions of times.

Later in the week, still reflecting on the wonder of what we had seen, Deborah sent me an e-mail from work. “I had been avoiding going outside for quite awhile, dreading to face the effects of my inattention to the garden. The closest I could get to the outside world was to sit near a window, whether I looked out of it or not. The roadrunner has become a personal totem, an emissary sent to bring messages that I need to hear. This one was about not feeling so self-important about my role and to have fun."

“Mother Earth will continue on, cycles and seasons will repeat, whether I participate or not. She wanted me to see this, so that a weight could be lifted and I would be able to dance along with all of nature without feeling that the success or failure of any endeavor depends entirely on what I do or don't do. First, she sent a hawk whose quick movements I caught from the corner of my eye. Then she enticed me with a roadrunner, because she knows I will listen to what the roadrunner says."

“The roadrunner's message was to play even when danger lurks -- to follow through with intent, regardless of distractions. I was awed by the show, as you were, and I am grateful that you made it back into the house in time to watch part of it with me. The most important thing about the performance, for me, was that it got me outside for a wonderful walk in which I was renewed by the knowledge of what has survived my neglect and the assaults of winter.”

lessons of a purple thistle...

While instructing a group of children on plant ecology, I was rudely interrupted by a Texas Purple Thistle. The plant kept jabbing spines into a girl crowding the group, to seek the shade the rest of us were enjoying. When she screamed in pain and frustration, the others turned around to see her source of irritation. She inadvertently cursed the thistle, and then thumped it to draw attention away from her impolite behavior.

I did not admonish her, and all the children, surprised that I did not, stood gazing at the plant, still waiting for the words of reproval. A child noticed a lady bug on the thistle, and reached out to catch it, saying, "ooooh, a lady bug, that means good luck!"

The thistle seemed to be dripping in lady bugs, and soon everybody had one in hand. I made the most of it. I found thousands of aphids on some thistles nearby and broke off a stem section with hundreds lining one side. The kids were grossed out.

"They look like little ticks that are stuffed and about to pop!"

"This is why the lady bugs are here. Look at the baby lady bugs."

"Those are worms -- not bugs."

"Lady bugs aren't bugs, they are beetles, and these are their larvae -- and look, here is one of their pupa."

'OOOh, this little bag? It looks like half-dried snot!"

I described how the larva of the beetle transforms itself inside the pupae. The kids would not let me squish one to see what stage the pupa had reached. Somebody else noticed a golden fly on the thistle. "Bee!"

Every kid took a step or two before I said, "Whoa. Take another look. This is a fly, it only has two wings."

Another fly was noticed -- a tiny red one shaped like a fruit fly, but bigger. Or was it a wasp, looking to parasitize caterpillars. Caterpillars? Oh, yes, dozens, hidden behind a curtain of webbing. The leaf was skeletonized under the webbing. One boy tore the web curtain, but the red fly/wasp did not come to the caterpillar six inches away. We bent the leaf to look at the tiny red insect more closely. Some of the kids said the critter had a "wasp waist" (a narrowing of the abdomen where it meets the thorax), and some said it did not. The critter flew away before we could settle the argument.

An ant clambered along near the mass of aphids. I informed the kids about honeydew. We could not see any globules of moisture at the anal end of the aphids. "This species of ant herds aphids, like we herd cows, and they drink the honeydew."

"OOoooh, gross --- eating bathroom stuff!" We looked again at the aphids. "Here's an ant licking an aphid's butt!"

The kids tittered nervously at the bold girl's comment.

"Here is that red fly back again." I noticed it perched on a wet spot on the undervein of the leaf. "I wonder if it coming to the honeydew." The kids were still watching to see if I would react to the girl's comment.

A big bumblebee came blundering into the thistle bloom surrounded by kids and me. They scattered. The presence of an animal or insect with a powerful defensive weapon is often interpreted as being an offensive act I growled at them. "Get back here! And then, hold still -- if you do not move, it won't get scared. Instead of fearing something and immediately killing it, respect and understand it."

They stopped and slowly came back, and watched as I poked a grass stem at the bee. "Look, he is covered with pollen. Do you see the "dust" on his hair?"

The bold girl crept closer. "What color is it" I asked her. Before she could answer, I continued, "Everybody thinks all pollen is yellow, but what color is this pollen?"

She leaned over until the bee felt her breath and it buzzed a little louder as it dug even deeper into the blossom. "It is sort of whitish, isn't it?"

I told them that the bumblebees nest in the ground and make honey pots. They did not believe me. "Bees live in hives," they said.

"Hives are for honeybees. Wild bees mostly live underground. Bumblebees have 20 or 30 adults living in one old mouse nest under a bush or rock somewhere."

A Black Swallowtail Butterfly tried to come through the circle of kids. I made some kids get out of the way so it could land on the thistle.

One child mused, "Are the caterpillars the babies of the butterfly?"

"Good thinking! But I forgot the answer. I want you to go find the answer when you get back to school, and call me. Find a butterfly identification book and look up Black Swallowtail."

"We do not have books like that in our library."

A kid who had attended a summer camp I had taught shook his head. " I wanted to show some friends I was not lying about the tarantulas throwing hair, and we went to the school library, and they had absolutely no identification books. We finally had to get a teacher to help us get on the Internet after school. She did not believe me about urticating hairs, either!"

A dull colored moth nectared at another blossom. "A moth in the daylight?" One of the kids made a joke about enjoying a "midnight snack.

"Bumblebee moths are a kind of day-flying moth. They lay their eggs on gourd vines, but they nectar on thistles. They look like a bumblebee until you realize they have fuzzy antennae and do not buzz."

In the large multi-trunked mesquite next to us, a hummingbird chittered. "He wants to come to the thistles too. He will eat the tiny insects in between the stamens. This one "bloom" is really hundreds of individual flowers -- all daisies are composite flowers that produce hundreds of seed for each "flower head."

"When a thistle seeds out, Lesser Goldfinches come to eat them and gather the hair of the seeds to line their nests."

On cue, two perched on the barbed wire fence near us. One began fly-catching, darting out into a swarm of gnats. "This may not seem much to you, but it is to an ornithologist. We may be seeing something no one has ever noticed before, or at least published in any scientific article or book. Goldfinches are normally strictly seed eaters, except when feeding young. And these should not have young. Why is that?"

No one tried to guess why the Goldfinches should not have young yet. Another child found a pink crab spider in the bloom. l told her that some crab spiders can change their colors in 24 hours to match the color of the flower they lurk in. I sort of got in trouble with the kids' adult leaders-- we did not make it back to the busses at the proper time. The group would be late returning to school.

Plants teach the interconnected matrix found within the landscape, so I am glad the Purple Thistle interrupted my planned talk -- it did a much better job!

test your knowledge of xeriscaping in west texas

xeriscaping in west Texas...

Native and Adapted Plants

I am going to group plants together that look good together… so this is a learning experience, too!

1. The very best type of red oak for West Texas is? 

2. Latin name

3. Family name

4. I.D. or cultural tips

5. Plumbago has _________ blossoms and leaves that turn _________ in the fall.

6. Latin name

7. Family name

8. Tips

9. Kerrville and Spicy Phlox are ____________________, have pink blossoms that smell very sweet, and like _________________ shade.

10.   Latin name

11.   Family name

12.   Tips

13.   Gulf Coast Muhly has _____________ colored panicles, and wiry leaves and grows to _________ feet high.

14.   Latin name

15.   Family name

16.   Tips

17.   Agaritas are ____________leaved. They have yellow blossoms in the spring and ______________ colored berries in May.

18.   Latin name

19.   Family name

20.   Tips

21.   Coralberry has small blooms in the fall, and ___________c0lored berries all winter, and spreads by _________________.

22.   Latin name

23.   Family name

24.   Tips

25.   Nolinas look like big evergreen ________________.

26.   Latin name

27.   Family name

28.   Tips

29.   Oxalis bloom mostly in the _______________.

30.   Latin name

31.   Family name

32.   Tips

33.   Blue eyed grass actually has what color in the center?

34.   Latin name

35.   Family name

36.   Tips

37.   Purple clematis would be pretty draped over a rock in this landscape. Its flowers look like little ______________.

38.   Latin name

39.   Family name

40.   Tips

41.   Columbines have _____________ ___________ on the back side of their ____________ colored blossoms.

42.   Latin name

43.   Family name

44.   Tips

45.   Caryopteris has ___________colored blossoms.

46.   Latin name

47.   Family name

48.   Tips

49.   Purple coneflower can take some shade. The cone in the center has what color on the tips of their stamens?

50.   Latin name

51.   Family name

52.   Tips

53.    A strange looking member of the Evening Primrose family, _____________ has one inch blossoms lined up along slender stems to three feet tall. It comes in both pink and white.

54.   Latin name

55.   Family name

56.   Tips

57.   The most commonly used Pavonia has ___________ blossoms about 1 inch across. It can get __________ feet tall. 

58.   Latin name

59.   Family name

60.   Tips

61.   Lady in red is a shortlived perennial- sometimes not coming back after a cold winter. It can get ______ feet tall, and has _________colored blossoms.

62.   Latin name

63.   Family name

64.   Tips

65.   Salad burnet can be used in salads. Its leaves look like the fronds of _________.

66.   Latin name

67.   Family name

68.   Tips

69.   Texas Betony has ________ flowers. It is almost evergreen, and begins to bloom ____________________. It has ________ stems.

70.   Latin name

71.   Family name

72.   Tips

73.   A small ornamental tree to round out this grouping of plants is a legume, has pink to red blooms in the spring. The variety with very glossy and small leaves makes it the __________ species of _____________.

74.   Latin name

75.   Family name

76.   Tips

For the next grouping we go for sunloving plants along a hot west or south wall…..

77.   Mesquite has ______________ on its branches, and yellowish catkin like blooms followed by __________, and when they are red, they are ripe.

78.   Latin name

79.   Family name

80.   Tips

81.   Goldenball lead tree is a member of the same family, but its blooms are ___________ in shape. It also has __________. Both trees can get up to __________ feet tall, and are usually multitrunked.

82.   Latin name

83.   Family name

84.   Tips

85.    Autumn sage, or hummingbird sage, comes in many different color variations,.. name three _______________<______________<__________________. It gets to _________ feet tall, and blooms from __________ to ________________. It attracts ___________________________-.

86.   Latin name

87.   Family name

88.   Tips

89.   Sotol has _____________ edges to its leaves, and sends up a bloom stalk up to ______________feet tall.

90.   Latin name

91.   Family name

92.   Tips

93.   Red yucca is not a true yucca. The tips of its leaves are not _____________,

94.   Latin name

95.   Family name

96.   Tips

97.   Alkali sacation is native to Midland County. Its bloom stalks  get _____________ feet tall.

98.   Latin name

99.   Family name

100. Tips

101. Wild Zinnia has ___________colored blossoms, and gets __________ inches tall. It can grow in gravel and other tight soils.

102. Latin name

103. Family name

104. Tips

105. Yellow euphorbia is another low plant that can take hot dry soils. It has ________ colored leaves, of which the lower ones drop off, leaving a ropy look. Its bloom is ______________-in the spring.

106. Latin name

107. Family

108. Tips

109. Damianita and Ericameria both have ___________ colored blossoms and both have strongly scented foliage that is ______________. Both get to about _______feet tall.

110. Latin name

111. Latin name

112. Family name

113. Family name

114. Tips

115. Tips

116. Trans pecos Mimosa has ________ and __________ colored blossoms. Its stems are very ________________.  It gets to ______________ tall.

117. Latin name

118. Family name

119. Tips

120. Texas sage has __________ colored leaves, but the blooms can come in several shades of pink to blue. It is usually evergreen, except in the very coldest of winters.

121. Latin name

122. Family name

123. Tips

124. The short senna we seeded in the greenhouse is Wisleznius Senna.  It has __________yellow blooms in the ______________.

125. Latin name

126. Family name

127. Tips

128. Liatris has a __________, not a bulb. It has __________colored spikes of flowers in September.

129. Latin name

130. Family name

131.    Tips

132. Old man’s beard would make a good backdrop to this planting. It is a ___________, and has _____________  fluffy seedheads after a small white flower.

133. Latin name

134. Family name

135. Tips

136. Bluebonnets can be planted in this bed as well. The seed should be planted in __________________.

137. Latin name

138. Family name

139. Tips

140. Calylophus are tough  sun loving plants. They have __________ blossoms, and most of the species only get _____________inches tall.

141. Latin name

142. Family name

143. Tips

144. Anisicanthus are tough sun loving plants as well, although they will perform well in part shade. Two of the species have ____________ colored flowers, while one has white. All have ____________-colored bark.

145. Latin name

146. Family name

147. Tips

148. Chocolate daisy blooms from _____________ to ____________. Burr’s cultivar is name _________________  _____________- and is slightly larger bloomed and in size than the native species. It has _____________ flowers .

149. Latin name

150. Family name

151.  Tips

152.  Another sun loving genera have yellow, red and yellow, pink and yellow, or purple blossoms. The native species has prickly stems, and does not smell wonderful, but they are extremely popular for their toughness. Butterflies love to land on their blossoms because of their “platform”. So… what is it?___________________

153. Latin name(any species of it)

154. Family name

155.  Tips

156. Another sun loving plant, Yellow Bells,  and it has ___________________ leaves, and its seeds are in something that looks like a  _______ but it is not a legume. It can _________ to death in winter, so plant it along a ___________.

157. Latin name

158. Family name

159. Tips

160. Black foot daisy has __________ colored blossoms and gets _________ inches tall.

161. Family name

162. Latin name

163. Tips

Now, we will move to a less xeric landscape, and figure out plants that need moist soil near a water feature….

164. Bluebells can have up to ________ blooms at once and grow to ________ feet tall. The japanese have bred pink and white varieties.

165. Latin name

166. Family name

167. Tips

168. Rabbit’s Footgrass, and Jamaican Sawgrass and Bulrush all grow near water. Which one is a true grass?

169. Moneyplant has leaves that are what shape?____________________-

170. Latin name

171. Family name

172. Tips

173. Frogfruit can grow well next to a pond as well, since it grows in low places in the wild, as well as along streams. It has __________colored blossoms. It is propogated by ___________________-

174. Latin name

175.  Family name

176. tips

177.  Name the four trees that grow near water ._____________,_______________,______________,___________.

Now… we are going to create a small forest… for people that have an acre to landscape.

178. A very good tall pine would be the Afghan Pine. What would be a good short pine to use at the entrance to the forest?________________--

179. Latin name

180. Family name

181.  Tips

182. We will have some elms. What are the two best elms for west Texas? __________________________ and _____________________

183. Latin name

184. Latin name

185. Family name

186. Family name

187. Tips

188. Tips

189. We need some flowering trees that are small. One of the best has funny looking seeds strung like beads and it is _____________________.

190. Latin name

191. Family name

192. Tips

193. Another tree, a slightly larger, with a Japanese shape and orchid like blossoms usually pink, sometimes white, and sometimes almost red is ___________ _________.

194. Latin name

195. Family name

196. Tips

197. A genus of small trees with white blooms, red fruit in the fall, and small thorns on the stems is ________________.

198. Latin name

199. Family name

200. Tips

201. We need some trees for wildlife. One that has purplish fruit that gives people diarrhea is _____________________.

202. Latin name

203. Family name

204. Tips

205. A large multitrunked shrub with blooms like a redbud is the ___________ ____________________. It has funny three sided seedpods.

206. Latin name

207. Family name

208. Tips

209. A kin to Soapberry, this tree has yellow blossoms and papery seedpods. ________________________.

210. Latin name

211. Family name

212. Tips

213. For a nice shady grove of evergreens we could plant any species of treeform juniper and then a bluish needled tree that produces round balls for fruit. This is _________________ ___________________-.

214. Latin name

215.  Family name

216. tips

217.  We need some oaks in this forest. How about a live oak, with its seed coming from where?

218. Latin name

219. Family name

220. Tips

221. How about a shrub oak- name one.___________________-

222. Latin name

223. Family name

224. Tips

225. We need a tree for the butterflies. Which is the best? _______________-

226. Latin name

227. Family name

228. Tips

229. If you are a old-fashioned West Texan, the forest will have Soapberry and Chinaberry. Chinaberry has __________ colored blossoms and fruit that are _____________colored/.

230. Latin name

231. Family name

232. Tips

233. And if you want wonderful color, you should have the best species of red oak, and ___________________    _____________which has reddish to bluish nutlike fruits, and red to orange foliage in the fall.

234. Latin name

235. Family name

236. Tips

237. If you are totally crazy and you want a tree that suckers, so you will have tons of trees you might plant ____________________(name one of 5 possibles).

238. Latin name

239. Family name

240. Tips

Shrubs can be used for screening, for dividing beds, for hiding ugly walls and fences, and for a wildlife thicket, and some have special uses.

241. Two species should be grown for their wonderful scent. __________________ and _____________________. They are not otherwise attractive, so should be hidden as secrets.

242. Latin name

243. Family name

244. Tips

245. Latin name

246. Family name

247. Tips

248. For fall migrating birds a ______________ can have white or purple berries.

249. Latin name

250. Family name

251.        Tips

252. There are three bird of Paradises. One is commonly used, and it has blooms that are __________ with ________ stamens. That is the Mexican Bird of Paradise. Another has orange blossoms, and a name used for it is ______________  ___ _______________. We have about 20 of those germinated.  The third has ________________ flowers, and bloomed in October, and is much taller than the others.

253. Latin name (of one)

254. Family name (of one)

255. Tips (of one)

256. There are three species of good broadleaved evergreen shrubs. One has purple blooms that smell like grapes, and has a sister species that comes from gyppy soils. Its seeds are poisonous, and it is ________________  ________________.

257. Latin name

258. Family name

259. Tips

260. Another one has white blooms in the fall, followed by red berries. It is _______________  _________________.

261. Latin name

262. Family name

263. Tips

264. Another have small white blooms and blackish fruit. One species is from Arizona has stiff leaves, and the other has roundish and soft  leaves._________________

265. Family name

266. Latin name

267. Tips

268. There is a group of three narrow leaved evergreens.  All have serrated leaves, whitish compund blooms in the spring. They are ________________

269. Winter Honeysuckle blooms in _______________ with a vanilla scent.

270. Family name

271. Latin name

272. Tips

273. Big bend buddleja has __________ leaves, _____________ blossoms and looks like a strange lantana.

274. Latin name

275. Family name

276. Tips.

A few more low growing plants, for fun.

277. Yellowpuff leaves ___________  if touched.

278. Spring snow has ___________ colored leaves.

279. Wine cup blooms mostly in the _____________.

280. Katy’s ________________ has a nice rosette of leaves flat on the ground, with ____________purplish flowers sticking out among them.

281. Scabiosa can have __________ or ____________ colored flowers.

282. Creeping germander has ____________ colored leaves and ___________ colored flowers.

283. Lambs’ ears has __________ colored leaves.

A couple more grasses… for good measure.

284. The Texas state grass is ______________ ________ ___________.

285. Lindheimer’s muhly gets _______ feet tall.

286. Stipa is known as ___________ ______________ ___________, too.

And a few more desert plants….

287. Ocotillo looks like a ___________, except after a rain.

288. Curve-leaf yucca comes from what part of Texas?

289. Chollas look like__________________________________

One more bulb…

290. South African rainlilies are ___________ than native Texas rainlilies because______________________.

And a couple of vines….

291. Passion flowers attract __________________ __________________.

292. Coral Wreath (or Queen’s Wreath) blooms _______________ color.

And an annual

293. Snow on the Prairie has _____________ sap

And finally a few perennials…..

294. Blue Mist flower is a member of what genus____________, and what type of butterfly loves it?_____________________________

295. Indian Blanket has _______ and ___________ colored flowers.

296. If you plant one _______ __________ ____________ you will have hundreds, for it spreads by rhizomes… it has pink flowers and is an Onagraceae.

297. Penstemons have __________ shaped flowers.

298. The Russian plant kin to salvia is ___________________.

299. Balloon flower has what colored blooms_______________.

300. Salvia farinaceae has _________ colored flowers.

Grading… an A will have 300 or more answers correct.

Any B will have 225 to 299 correct

Any C will have 150 to 225 correct

A D will have 100 to 150 correct…

There are almost 425 correct answers…. GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!