Leslie Newton Goodding had a busy career. It was when he worked for the U. S. Department of Agriculture that he collected the type specimen for the willow jabbered about in this episode. It was the American botanist Carleton Roy Ball, a Salix specialist (geek), who honored Goodding with the species name.
One of the things that caught my attention when reading about Leslie Goodding was that at some point he taught High School in Bisbee, as well as Benson. I bet those teaching gigs supported his plant explorations around southern Arizona.
There are a bunch of Salix spp. in Arizona. My Arizona Flora (1960) lists 16 species and I get a kick out of a more current reference that says “nearly 20 species.” So who knows? I do know that Goodding willow is the most common willow in the southwest and found along streams, meadows, ponds, and wet places below 7,500 ft.
The photos are mine of Salix gooddingii by a pond and in glorious fall foliage.
Tecoma stans angustata is in the Bignonia family Bignoniaceae and there are a bunch of species of Tecoma starting here in the borderlands with...
Xanthisma gracilis is an annual and found all over the southwest and into Mexico as well. Duh. A common name is slender goldenweed or...
Petey has a new wildflower book and likes it so much that he is probably reading it under the covers at night. Oh dear....
