individual May flowers

early May textures and colors

Plant Speciation and distribution on the Llano Estacado

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.

Plant adaptations to heat, wind, and drought

With the recent rains, GREEN magically appeared. How in the world can this happen? Everything looked dead! The drought has been an ongoing ecological catastrophe -- it has been three long years since pastures greened up after a rainy spell. It seemed the horrors would never end. But now, plants have grown, bloomed and set seed -- all in the space of three weeks! My, my, my – what a blessing – what a gift – how wondrous!

A country gardener fighting newly germinated Careless Weeds in her flowerbed called to ask, “How long can seeds lie dormant?” I knew that a 2000-year-old lotus seed found in a grave in China germinated. The gardener then asked a much tougher question to answer. “How is it possible that they can live that long?" I had to tell her I would call her back.

What is the physiological basis for seed dormancy? The sugars stored in the seed form a matrix similar to glass -- liquid glass, that is. In effect, suspended animation occurs – plant cryogenics, as it were. Wow!!! How cool! Learning is thrilling! What a novel way to think of a seed – a tiny crystal of life. The knowledge gives an interior light and glowing warmth to any seed we hold. The mind can imagine this liquid glass -- bright and hot – too hot and bright to hold.

While researching seed dormancy, I stumbled across another tidbit of information that startled me. “Many xerophytic plants transpire at more rapid rates than mesophytes.” Desert plants have more water escaping from their leaves than other plants? No -- no way! The very idea seemed absurd.

Xeromorphism is fascinating. Plants of the desert have many different mechanisms to prevent the loss of moisture: sunken stomata (pores), hairy leaves, waxy leaves, small leaves, succulent leaves, big tubers, highly dissected leaves, silver leaves, etc. Whole programs for school children have been built around this topic. Had we been wrong? Or was this author crazy?

After it rains, plants absorb increased soil moisture through their roots. Heat from the sun warms the plant’s moisture-laden leaf cells, causing their internal vapor pressure to rise above that of the outside air. The increased heat that is generated within the leaf cell is whisked away as pores in the leaf act like teakettle spouts. Once the internal pressure is released, the plant’s xeromorphic characteristics kick in to prevent more moisture from escaping. Growth stops when soil moisture is no longer available, and the plant returns to enduring the usual conditions of an arid climate.

Some bushy plants can survive droughts of a year or more. Some are aphyllous -- leafless. Allthorn (the world’s largest is on Stan Smith's Buffalo Basin Ranch southwest of town) has green branches that photosynthesize. Prickly Pear Cactus has tiny leaves that appear early in the growing season – tiny tubercles where spines will later grow. Wolfberry only puts on leaves after a rain, as does Ocotillo, which some use as an ornamental specimen. Wolfberry can put on and lose leaves (and produce blooms and fruit) three times in a year, depending upon how the rainy periods are spaced. Mesquite survives by extending its roots deep and far – 90 feet down and 75 feet horizontally.

Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata) is one of the most drought resistant plants existing anywhere in the world. It can be found in great numbers in the gravelly soils of the southwestern U.S., almost to the exclusion of other plants. Its small, bright yellow flowers appear whenever it rains.

Creosote Bush has a pungently aromatic scent arising from the resin in its evergreen leaves that many find to be quite pleasant. Resinous plants are often found in the desert since their thick “sap” slows transpiration. Myrrh is another such plant that is native to the deserts of the Middle East. The scent of Larrea is the scent of rain in the desert. To me, it is intoxicating. I rub the crushed leaves of the plant on me as cologne, and Deborah makes a bath soap full of its resins and dried leaves just for me.

The xylem cells in Larrea’s roots also contain resin and have thick walls, enabling these cells to hold four times as much moisture as the xylem cells in the roots of forest plants. In addition, Larrea has a symbiotic relationship with fungi that collect water near its roots.

When drought occurs, stomata on the leaves of Larrea close for longer and longer periods during the day, until eventually they are open only in the early morning. Because stomata allow the escape of oxygen and water during photosynthesis, this process is slowed when the release valves remain closed for long periods of time.

This slowing of photosynthesis could cause problems, but Larrea has developed a mechanism to lessen the potentially harmful effect. Although its lower, interior leaves wilt and turn yellow, they continue to hang on to the plant for several weeks. Decay of the wilted leaves produces nitrogen, which the plant transfers to the remaining healthy leaves. If the drought worsens, the remaining leaves go dormant. Their resin protects them, both from drying out, and also from the effects of sudden changes in osmotic pressure when moisture does return.

Larrea’s reactions to rain are fascinating. On as little as 2/10ths of an inch of rain, Larrea can grow -- a 1/2 inch rain causes Larrea to grow as much as 2 inches. Even so, the plant contains growth inhibitors that prevent it from growing so much that it could not survive the next period of drought. Because moisture appears to be the factor that triggers production of the plant’s growth inhibitors, I wonder if too much moisture causes the growth inhibitors to kill the plant. Larrea dies if it is planted in garden soil and watered regularly.

Massive carpets of newly germinated Larrea have been seen in the wild. These occur after repeated summer monsoon downpours, when ground temperature is near 150 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity at ground level is at 90%. I love the irony that the most drought-tolerant plant on earth can only germinate in the steamy conditions of a sauna!

I consider Larrea to be a totem, a revered symbol of what it means to adapt to the strict demands of life in the desert.

A number of desert plants are “cleistogamous,” or self-fertilizing. Puccoon has showy, sterile yellow blooms in March. The self-fertilizing blooms look like buds and appear in early summer. The cleistogamous flowers of some plants never even open.

Angels’ Trumpets and Moonpod are two charming plants of the 4-O’clock family found on the southern Llano Estacado. Both form small, low-growing mounds with long tubular white flowers that open thirty minutes before sundown. Both are pollinated by Hummingbird Moths (also known as Sphinx Moths, whose caterpillars are Hornworms). Both species have both cleistogamous and chasmogamous flowers. “Chasmogamous” means cross-fertilizing with the flowers of other plants.

Both species will produce seed when the moth visits their opened flowers. When no rain falls, the cleistogamous flowers appear – short, stubby tubes that never open into the trumpet shape.

This sort of floral behavior is rare in the 4-O’clock family. Cleistogamous 4-O’clocks only occur in Chihuahuan Desert species such as ours. Why does it not occur in 4-O’clocks elsewhere in the world? I love such mysteries. Unknowable and unanswerable mysteries are holy, wondrous and humbling.

box turtles...a free range rural population

It is 6:30 a.m. and there is knocking at the door. It is too early for a visitor  – what is going on? When the door is opened, Yellowhead is peering up. “Where is breakfast- how come the door is not open?” He comes in, turns the corner to the cat food bowl, lowers his head, and CRUNCH. The cat gallops in, as well, but quickly applies the brakes, to loom above Yellowhead like a vulture – “Dadgum turtle…jeez.”

Yellowhead nibbles away for ten minutes, and then strolls through the house. Once, and only once, has he marked the house as his territory with one neat, tidy dropping. “No beetles have snuck in, boss.” Back he goes, out the door, his shell thumping as he clambers down the stoop. “Dessert-time… I’m glad my humans brought the pile of prickly pear fruit to the porch.” He rolls over a couple of the tunas, finally selecting one with the proper softness.

Yellowhead raises his head as One-spot ambles by on the way to the cat food. One-spot is a little shy – if one of the humans moves too much at the breakfast table, she bolts for the door. She does not explore the house and if a cat wants to eat, she deferentially makes way. “Ooh, pardon me.”

Two new turtles have followed these long-time residents to the cat food bowl this year, though they have only visited once. For them, it must be a little too strange entering a human’s house to compete with four-legged monster kitties. The smaller of the two, Little Pee-body, came in boldly, neck arched, peering every which way. She did not pull her head in when approached, but when picked up and examined, named herself. White-neck panicked and ran for cover when the humans unexpectedly returned from their early morning walk, disappearing under the bed. The shock of being carried out the door imprinted a permanent wariness, but she does appreciate the prickly pear tunas.

Fancy-legs and Big-girl prefer the herb garden. Big-girl lives in the compost pile next to the Scent Room. When she comes out to explore, the smell of scented geraniums and patchouli wafts about the adjacent area, announcing her presence. “We know you are awake, Big-girl… come out, come out, wherever you are,” She is not the friendly sort. She is big and old, set in her ways, downright business-like in her morning food patrol. Fancy-legs is a roly-poly hunter par excellence. She moves slowly, digging in the mulch. Despite her valiant efforts the roly-polies decimated the Sweet-woodruff, but she helped keep the Woad alive in its early days.

Old Man moved from the shadehouse to the tall-grass this year. Last year, he and Big-girl claimed the shade house together, and no other turtle stayed long in their neighborhood. But Big-girl must not have “come into season” this year, and with the drought, Old Man probably preferred the deep mulch of old tall grass stalks. He has only come out the few times more than half an inch of rain fell. Perhaps he was looking for earthworms in the early morning, before the clouds melted away.

Out in the pasture, a turtle with very narrow yellow lines roams. Her territory is much larger than that of the turtles who inhabit the cultivated gardens near at the house. She has not yet received a name. Sometimes she is called Dit-dot-dit, for the pattern on her back, and sometimes Lonely-girl, because she seems to dislike the company of other turtles.

Tattered-and-torn died last winter. She was a consistent cat food gourmand for most of last summer, but in early winter she was found dead by the pond, upside down and fleshless. Normally, turtles are able to right themselves if accidentally rolled onto their backs. What turned Tattered-and-torn over is unknown. It may have been a stray dog, or a hungry coyote. Maybe a raccoon came by, and got bored waiting for her to stick her neck and legs out to turn over, and left her to die. Tattered-and-torn’s shell is on a place of honor on top of the “folly” by the pond.

[In Ireland a garden feature that made to look like an old ruin is called a “folly.” Our folly is a vegetated mound with old brick steps leading to the top, where a large stump represents an altar. A flag bearing the image of the famous rock-art drawing of a shaman from Panther Cave near Del Rio marks the entrance. Flameleaf Sumac, Four-wing Saltbush, Nolina, and Prickly Pear surround the central open area on the mound’s top. The folly serves as a wonderful “blind” for watching kingfishers, herons, and other birds that come to the water.]

Box Turtles do not often visit the pond area. They may be disgusted by the presence of several stinkpots, or Yellow Mud Turtles. The stinkpots are almost never seen. Once in a while, their tracks lead across the silty, fishpoop mud in the shallows. Stinkpots reportedly eat frogs, but a respectable population of Leopard Frogs has maintained itself for years. A rescued Bullfrog was introduced this year, but so far ol’ Jug-o-rum has not diminished the Leopard Frog population either. A big Texas Pond Slider, rescued and released, has not been seen again. Possibly a gravid female searching for a proper nesting spot, she may have found location lacking and continued her hike.

An unknown number of additional Box Turtles have been spotted along the trails of our average West Texas pastureland need a home range of five to ten acres. These other turtles occasionally show up at the edge of the planted areas, and may be observed several times, before they disappear again. Do the resident turtles chase them away? Is there some form of turtle communication ( maybe pheromones?) that informs the visiting turtles that carrying capacity has been reached in the planted area? Why are the two turtles who reside in the Fruiting Mulberry Thicket or in the Jujube Grove much shyer than the other Arboretum turtles?

The turtles appear to follow natural patterns in their lives. People with backyard populations of ten or more report that their turtles are visible much more often than our pasture turtles. Many of our turtles come out for a week or two, roam around, visit the house, then disappear for two weeks at a time. This cycle continues throughout the year. Wild turtles in the pasture may only emerge in rainy periods, or when driven out by hunger during a drought.

What makes backyard turtles so much more active? Is there more competition? (Competition for space, that is, since backyard turtles are normally well-fed.) Ourturtles do not  get the swollen eyes or lumps on their necks that affect some backyard turtles. Are these maladies a symptom of stress which afflict the backyard turtles?

Baby Box Turtles are never seen here. Little Pee-body is the smallest, and she is at least three years old. Two yearling box turtles were released last year. One was seen a short time later, after digging a hole on the “Rock Hill,” a mound of gravel and composted cottonhulls used for experimenting with the cultivation of west Texas plants that thrive on gravelly hillsides. Is the resident gray fox able to eat baby turtles whole? Did it eat the yearling box turtles, too? Does Magoosh the roadrunner eat baby Box Turtles, as well? Are the babies driven from the cultivated area by the other turtles?

Turtles are wonderful neighbors!

snakes and fear

Some folks want to hold snakes when given the chance, but there is always someone deathly afraid of them -- and so many people say how ugly and evil and horrible snakes are. Several years ago a couple of folks came to request that I stop talking to children about snakes. "Boy, you should kill them, kill them all. Kill ever dang snake you see." The elderly man had been raised on a farm in Lynn County and had spent all of his working days in the oil field. "I have killed a thousand, at least." He had driven up in a brand new luxury car and had big shiny rings on his fingers.

His daughter had called me after her son came to one of my programs for school children. "I really do not think you should expose children to snakes. Snakes are agents of Lucifer. Children should be protected from evil." I invited her out, to see how I kept the snakes, and to go review the material we cover when I present a program about snakes. She and her father came the very next morning.

"The best way to protect your child is by giving them knowledge. I know you said you live in town, and that you never go camping. But what if you were driving to Odessa to shop and you had a flat on Highway 191? What if your child got out to watch the good Samaritan change your tire, and decided to stand on a piece of trash so the grass burs would not get in his socks? What if underneath that piece of litter a rattler was resting out of the direct sun? Whenever a person is outside in West Texas, there is a chance a rattler is there, too. Once in a while a rattler is even found in town. The world is not a perfect place. There are always dangers at hand."

"Snakes are so evil. My stomach gets upset even seeing one." The daughter stood with her hands on her hips, a tight and angry expression on her face. Her father stepped close to me. "You scare kids when you show them snakes. My little grandbaby came home all quiet yesterday. He said you made him touch a snake. How can you have somebody touch something so slimy and nasty, and to let the snake lick you on the nose --. Because of that and because you put the snake around your neck he woke up during the night dreaming about a snake around his neck. I had to sit with him for thirty minutes before he went back to sleep."

"I know you folks are upset, but let me tell you about a rancher over on Big Silver Creek south of Colorado City. That ol' boy was raised there, and when he was a kid, he said he could see a rattler almost every time he rode a horse all day. Nowadays, he only sees two or three during the whole year, but that is beside the point. I was touring the ranch with him and his family one time, and just as he and I were checking some CRP plantings, we nearly stepped on a big diamondback. The huge snake started rattling and raising his head, all ready to strike. I figured that rancher would go back to the truck for the shotgun hanging in the rear window and return to blow the snake’s head off. Instead, he called his three little granddaughters over to watch the snake, and the youngest girl was just a toddler, barely making sense when she talked.

“When the girls got near the rattler, he hunkered down and put his arms around them and said, 'The Good Lord has a reason for every animal and plant on the face of this planet. The Lord put this rattler right here today so I can teach you some things. First -- rattlesnakes help us remember that we should always be watchful and alert. Careless people get hurt. People who do not watch and observe and think are the ones who get hurt. The second lesson is that this snake is doing a job for me. I planted thousands of dollars of grass and forb seeds in this field, trying to revegetate it. I do not want mice and packrats and cotton rats eating the seed, so I am glad he is out here. Look at that big lump half-way down him. He must have just caught a baby rabbit. I know baby rabbits are just as cute as can be, but look -- see -- a rabbit gnawed this Illinois Bundleflower to the ground. That plant fixes nitrogen in the soil.’

“The little girls were looking from his face to the snake and back, listening intently. ‘The Good Lord wants us to be a steward of the land. To be a steward you must understand, or at least try to understand. Your daddy and I killed a rattler on your lawn last week with the shotgun, but we are not killing this one, not today. We did not want that one last week setting up housekeeping around your house. It might have hurt you, for you are still babies, not big enough for school yet.’

“He pointed at the snake in front of them. ‘See, he has quit rattling, and now he is crawling off. Rattlesnakes are not evil. God put them here, to teach us. They never ever attack people just to hurt us -- we are monsters to them, huge clumsy monsters.’ The girls giggled at that. ‘Rattlers rattle at us to tell us and cows (and buffalo back in the old days) that they want every thing to go around them and not step on them. They only bite us when we are being careless, or when people are trying to catch them for snake roundups, or when we are trying to kill them and we do a bad job of it. We did not put the rattlesnake on this Earth, girls, and we do not have the right to rid the Earth of them, either.’”

The grandfather and his daughter reacted to the story about the other family by walking out, as they repeated their beliefs and said they would never return. The daughter and her son did, however, return once as part of a home-schooling group. They were quiet, reserved, and remained in the background during the second visit, declining to interact with the other parents and children as they discovered the critters who share our homeland. They have not returned since.

May 1 birds