In the "rainy 1980's" Monahans Draw flooded
every winter. On top of the flat Llano Estacado, floods slither across the land
and do not become the proverbial roaring wall of water that is experienced in
desert arroyos. Odessa's treated sewage water and floodwaters oozed well past
its usual terminus at FM1788 (in the summer) or Midkiff Road (in the winter).
The 35 inches of rain that pounded down in 1986, caused
floodwaters to meander all the way to "Pelican Lake" on the Garden
City Highway at the Midland County line. For several winters, waters pooled up
at Soda Lake, a playa southeast of town. When full, Soda Lake covered sixty
acres and was six to eight feet deep. The water never evaporated for 10 years,
as it was replenished for several years during the "rainy 80's."
The ranchers who owned the property where the lake was
situated were quite gracious, granting limited access to local birdwatchers for
fieldtrips. Not only was there a spectacular view (well, the best in
Midland County anyway), but roadbuilders had dug caliche and chat from a
section of the top. While this may not seem a good thing for local ecology, due
to the ugly scar left behind, the walls of the excavation provided new habitat
for birds. Although one species, Great Horned Owls, is found throughout the
county, the "cliff" face is ideally suited their nesting needs. Every
winter, at least one Rock Wren from the canyons of New Mexico finds the pit and
remains for months. Abandoned caliche pits can be wonderfully diverse
ecosystems as they age.
As a nine-year-old botanist-in-training, I found a Rue
called "Dutchman's Breeches" and a Madder known as
"Innocence" growing on a limestone outcropping on a ranch near
Pelican Lake. Part of the fun of learning about flowers is the names and the
stories that go with them. I loved these names (and the flowers themselves.)
The Dutchman's Breeches truly look like miniature pantaloons!
For years that small outcropping was the only place I
could find those species in Midland County, so I made yearly treks to check on
their continued existence. Years later, I found both species growing on the
Edwards Limestone ridge above Soda Lake 15 miles away. Innocence also grew
along the spillway of the Interstate Pond.
Innocence and Dutchman's Breeches are common plants in
their preferred habitat -- the rocky slopes of the Stockton Plateau, and the
mesas and breaks on the east side of the Llano Estacado. Innocence can be found
in gravelly limestone areas all over the Trans-Pecos and in New Mexico. Plants
are often specialists, occurring only in specific locations with very detailed
micro-environmental characteristics. Plant life covers the earth with a
wonderfully detailed blanket -- and although it may seem cliched, knowing the
woof of the fabric makes the blanket loved in the way of a two-year-old's
security blanket.
I love this ugly brown desert in that way. As a child, I
had countless days following my ornithologist mother, all the while developing
an uncool, unmacho love of plants. It thrilled me to discover a new species to
identify, to keep records of my findings, and to collect seeds to plant on our
five acres on Neely Street. My folks would drive along county roads at five
miles an hour, with me perched on the hood of the car, yelling "stop"
whenever I saw a new plant to record. I found 150 wildflower species in one
memorable day! My mother's birdwatching and my "botanizing" kept our
family on the road over half of every year's weekends, celebrating what we
learned about the landscape. As a young man I lived in Alaska, Colorado, Utah,
Washington State, Oklahoma, Arkansas and California, but I returned home to
West Texas to find myself.
Crawford's Ridge is a pocket of diverse botanical wealth
within the larger mesquite brushland. Shortgrass prairie is found in the
shallow soil on top of the ridge. Dotting the 100+ acres of the ridge top are
small depressions that fill with rainwater for brief periods. These vernal
pools have rich soil that creates another micro-environment. Midland County's
native Salvia is a tiny annual with sky blue blossoms which only germinates
after wet winters have kept these vernal pools damp for months
Shari Laidley discovered the first few specimens of this
Salvia in Midland Draw, where floodwaters from town had pooled up in front of a
riparian forest of hackberries and soapberries. Crawford's Ridge is the only
location that local amateur botanists can locate this diminutive plant in the
wetter years.
Elsewhere, I have found the tiny Salvia from south of
Roscoe, to Big Lake, to Lubbock and back to Midland, so its range is
sufficiently large to guarantee its survival. With such limited opportunities
to fulfill its specific needs, the plant may seem rare, but truly is not. Had
it been a large showy plant, it might have been mistakenly placed on the
Endangered Species list because its particular needs would have taken several
years of research to understand.
Ninety-nine percent of the life forms that share our
existence on the Llano Estacado have not been thoroughly studied. To many
biologists, the area is viewed thusly, "Why, heck, the Llano Estacado are
a biological travesty, with farmland stripping the soil bare, except where
overgrazed prairie has become brush-infested thickets. The place is a biologic
armpit -- a rotten stinking no-good boring ugly desert." Corporate-funded
academic research projects have no interest in most of the life forms found
here. The tiny Salvia is not a weed, such as Bermuda Grass, for which a new
herbicide is developed every few years.
Pure science, or knowledge for the sake of knowledge, is
castigated severely in the public forum. (Remember Senator Proxmire's Golden
Fleece awards?) Why spend money to research the sex life of a fly? Why spend
money to research the micro-environmental needs of Salvia subincisa? Who in
blue blazes cares about such inconsequential nonsense? Love is illogical, isn't
it?
I love plants. I love picking at the tapestry of
botanical life, picking up a tiny piece of the fabric and examining it with
great care. I fall asleep clutching this allegorical blanket, seeing beautiful
landscapes in my dreams -- "Oooh, this dream is starting at Crawford
Ridge, and look, there is Salvia subincisa, so it must be May after a wet
winter -- oooh that means so many wildflowers will be blooming! Oh, yes! It is
a very good year!" No matter that drought continues to blister the
landscape -- not in my dreams.
JoAnn Merritt also loves plants, and she is a plant
finder extraordinaire. Over the years, she has added dozens of new species to
the Midland County plant list. JoAnn was the first to discover the botanical
wealth of Crawford's Ridge. She came whooping and hollering and yelling at the
door of my house with two species she had not seen before, way back in the mid
1980's.
One was familiar to me: Paronychia, a funny, scabrous brillo
pad, which I had seen on gravelly limestone hillsides all across West Texas.
The other plant was new to me -- carrot leaves, carrot root, a green ball of
wafered seeds. Definitely a carrot, but which? Cymopterus bulbosus to be exact
-- Mountain Parsley in every day language. What a wonderfully strange plant,
with its sweet, ferny smell and texture. Oh my, oh my!
When Ernie Johnson (the beloved baseball coach during the
first 25 years of Lee High School's existence), and I worked on a Midland
County Herbarium, I took him out to Crawford's Ridge. We again found a new
species for the county in the vernal pools: Skinny-leaf Four-o-clock. As we sat
on big boulders pushing out of the caliche pit, he idly asked about some tiny
plants on the slope in front of us. Hunkering down with our rear ends in the
air (the classic botanist posture) we compared two specimens. "They are
different!"
Until that moment, we had thought there were only two
species of Cryptantha (a genus of Borage with scorpoid cymes). The coiled buds
unfurl as they bloom -- like Blue Curls, the big showy wildflower of sandy
soils. We began examining every Cryptantha we could find, and before we knew
it, we found seven species. Two specialized in limestone soils, two in clay
soils, two in sandy soils, and one was a generalist, found in many habitats. My
word! Why such diversity? Who knows? No other genus of plants in Midland County
has undergone such speciation.
Years ago, I was sitting on a salmon fishing boat with
Peter Islieb, the best-known ornithologist in Alaska. While we waited to unload
our hold onto the tender, he talked about the differences in habits of several
species of salmon, of which we caught five over a season. "Why are there
so many different species?" I asked him.
Puffing on his pipe, he wearily squinted at me and said,
"I do not know, but I see it as proof of God's existence. God encompasses
everything unknown. We cannot truly understand time without end, or space
without end. I know some people disagree with me, but when I look at the
diversity of species filling many different niches, I see evolution at work. I
see thousands and millions of years. I see that God has been around, carefully
tweaking the genetics of creatures so they can survive varying conditions and
changes through the eons. To me, evolution is proof of God. I see Him as a
master craftsman, tinkering forever in His workshop."
I thought of that, when Coach Johnson and I found the
seven Cryptantha. To find those seven species was truly a wonder. Each time the
unknowable presents itself, I am awed. I feel the presence of a Power much
larger than myself. When I learned that there are seven local species of
Cryptantha fills my heart so much, it moved me to stand and lift my arms to
sing wordless hosannas of gratitude for such an incredible world.
No comments:
Post a Comment