We are so lucky to live near a creek that will sometimes flow for weeks from winter rain and melted snow runoff. Everyday we make sure to wander along that gurgling creek and look for new plants along its banks or new foot prints in mud at the water’s edge.
Depending on which flora or field guide you pick up, Glandularia bipinnatifida var. ciliata can be found from 2,000’ to 10,000’ in elevation and has a wide range in the US and no doubt southward, and so you hear common names like Dakota vervain, prairie vervain, prairie verbena, Dakota verbena, mock vervain, or moradilla. I was thinking of giving it my own common name of glandy vervain (cool, right?), but Dakota verbena came up the most times in my quest for a common name, so I guess I’ll call it Dakota verbena. And as prevalent as this verbena is in the mountains and hills above us, this is a new species for the creek banks near our home. I suspect seed came down from the afore mentioned hills in the flood of August 2017. That flood created new channels and banks where we now find this beautiful wildflower.
The photos are mine and taken along the ol’ Guajolote, the creek that helps me sleep.
I wrote this song about Lycium fremontii when I was managing the native plant nursery of Desert Survivors on West Starr Pass in Tucson....
I loved sitting in that grassland and warming up with a rising sun. Is there anything better than sitting quietly and watching the natural...
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