More Drivel and Trivia, but with Hesperocallis

Shawn Pollard pollards22@yahoo.com
Sat, 28 Dec 2013 08:47:13 PST
When hiking in the canyons of Arizona's sky islands (e.g., Santa Catalina Mtns., Ajo Mtns.) where oaks, junipers, cypresses, and pinyon pines interface with saguaros, organ pipe cacti, and other desert vegetation, it's fun to speculate on the age of some of these trees.  In these canyon crevasses where desert vegetation dominates the sunny canyon walls and higher-elevation plants dominate the shady walls and canyon bottoms, many of the trees are gigantic (by AZ standards) and ancient.

On the bulb front, Hesperocallis undulata is sprouting all over the vacant lots and sandy expanses around my Yuma neighborhood.  I see quite a few seedlings, although I've never seen any seedpods survive to maturity the depredations of the local rodents.  Based upon my observations since 2004, the key to triggering its growth appears to be significant late summer monsoons (late August this year) followed in short order by significant early cool season rains (late November this year).  We will probably need more rain to spur them to bloom in any significant number.  I've seen a number of winters where they all sprout, but only solitary, well-scattered individuals bloom.

Shawn Pollard
Yuma, AZ


--------------------------------------------
On Thu, 12/26/13, Hannon <othonna@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [pbs] Onward through the fog! - More Drivel and Trivia :-)
 To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
 Date: Thursday, December 26, 2013, 6:09 PM
 
 Even more OT: Vandeventer and others
 have provided insights into vegetation
 of the past utilizing packrat middens. They have
 demonstrated that in the
 place of the Sonoran Desert flora around Tucson now there
 was
 pinyon-juniper woodland. This was only about 8000 years
 ago.
 
 http://sbsc.wr.usgs.gov/cprs/research/…
 
 
 Dylan Hannon
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