Oh my goodness, there are beetles, bees and moths that visit the open flowers of Calylophus harwegii from late afternoon and through the night. Some of the wing spans that loomed in my headlights as we drove down Dragoon Road were quite large and I’m guessing those were hawk moths, but what species? I’m going to plant some more Calylophus around out little homestead and observe the evening visitors. Research!
Hartweg’s sundrops (Calylophus hartwegii) is also a commercial landscape plant, and you’ll see it in highway medians, in the right of way or in front of office buildings. I guess you could say it’s a successful native plant. Harumph! Having flowers open for cool native pollinators, now that’s successful. I suggest a visit to where you’ll find it in habitat. Some grassy plains or rocky slopes above 3,500 ft. in the borderlands should do the trick. Hey, you could drive over to Dragoon! Then it’s guaranteed.
If I want to grow sundrops, and of course I do, cuts will work, but I think I’m going to gather and plant seed and you’ll find me in the greenhouse singing:
Germinating rhythms, little cotyledons,
Tiny rooting radicles, on plants that I’ve been seeding.
My made up morning melodies are not nearly as amazing as the songs of a curved bill thrasher, but they help me begin the...
Petey chats about the hydro-seeded wildflowers he sees along the local roadsides. He seems a tad miffed.
The genus is now Hesperocyparis, but back in the olden days I learned the rough bark Arizona cypress of southeastern Arizona as Cupressus arizonica...
