I hope you’re getting some time away from your home and out into nature…out into the wild. It sure is easy to social distance when you are out in the desert or mountains, but Ms. Mesquitey and I always carry masks with us, just in case we run into a situation that requires them, like having to stop for gas. Anyway, get out and make some biome memories and we’ll compare notes soon!
I always want to add an extra T when I write Yucca baccata, but no, two Cs and one T is correct. The specific epithet baccata is from Latin and means berry. The 6-8” long fleshy fruit look more like bananas than berries, so the common name banana yucca gets it right. Another common name for this yucca is datil, which comes from the Spanish name for date palm fruit/berries…dates. Pronounce it in Spanish, not like the anglicized pronunciation of the town Datil in New Mexico. Perhaps a more accurate common Spanish name should have been platano, but datil it is!
The photos are mine and taken in the desert near the Winchester Mountains.
Petey has wild dreams if he stays in bed too long in the morning. Get up Petey! Amoreuxia palmatifida is always a delightful botanical...
Petey chats about the hydro-seeded wildflowers he sees along the local roadsides. He seems a tad miffed.
This is a rambling episode about beer cans in the wild, plant gestalt, and instincts about places. Oh, and an interesting plant called Sideroxylon...
