There is no getting around it, every summer monsoon when the borderlands come to life it is so exciting! Apodanthera undulata, the crazy melon, can be easily seen along the roads and out across the land during this season. The clusters of yellow flowers give it away quickly. Those yellow flowers close up pretty quickly later in the morning. You can see the spent and tired flowers in the photo below. And check out the crazy ribbed fruit with the “disagreeable odor” as noted in Arizona Flora. Hey, it’s melon loco in the Cucurbitaceae! Yay!
I had a chance to use the word didymus when describing the seed pods of Menodora, but forgot, so here: the common name twinberry...
Growing Native- Black Swallowtail The scientific name of the black swallowtail is Papilio polyxenes. Papilio is Latin for butterfly and the specific epithet polyxenes...
The genus Allium has had quite a taxonomic journey and is at this time (stay tuned!) in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, where it had...
