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.
There is a large batch of horehound (Marrubium vulgare) under a mesquite in our yard. Well, along a fence line that defines “our yard”....
In the borderlands look for Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa) between 3,500 ft. and 7,000 ft. on rocky slopes, out in…
Western soapberry is Sapindus saponaria var. drummondii and is in the family Sapindaceae. In the soapberry family there are around twelve species. I say...