The scientific name of the band-tailed pigeon is no longer Columba fasciata, but is Patagioenas fasciata. That’s too bad because I was hoping to start a new dance craze called The Columba. Patagioenas does not sound like a dance craze, but is a combination of two Ancient Greek words meaning clatter and pigeon. The genus was first used in the naming of the white-crowned pigeon in 1853 and it now includes 17 species. It was applied to the band-tailed pigeon while I was sleeping. My apologies to my birder friends. That said, I will still be dancing The Columba this summer, especially when it rains.
Southwest white pine is a magnificent native pine. If you are having trouble identifying it in a forest of towering conifers, look on the ground for the easily recognized cones, then look up.
The photos are mine of some cones on the ground and of a couple young plants in nursery containers. Yes, I have a handful of sweet little Pinus strobiformis here at home…I can’t help myself.
I originally wrote and recorded the song Road Across the Grassland in 2005…well, maybe a little before, but listen, there really is a dirt...
Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is found from central California, up through the Pacific Northwest, throughout the Rockies (variety glauca) and southward down into our...
I read in HORTUS THIRD that there are about 150 species of Vaccinium found in “cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere,” 40 of...