One of the most magical moments of my childhood was when I first dug up potatoes in a garden and we later had some for dinner. I was awe struck! The domestication and cultivation of the potato (Solanum tuberosum) that I was digging up in that garden or the potatoes we purchase at the grocery store goes back thousands of years in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia. And isn’t it wonderful crazy that here in North America the cultivation of the native Four Corners potato (Solanum jamesii) here in the southwest goes back 11,000 years. Well, the range of Solanum jamesii is far beyond the four corners area and you can bet indigenous folks all over North America have been eating species of wild native potatoes for thousands of years. Pretty cool.
The photos of Solanum stoloniferum (S. fendleri) are mine and taken in the Chiricahua Mountains. The rainbow photo was taken by my old friend Kate Turner and taken from her little homestead the very day I was jabbering about in this episode. Thanks Kate!
Hummingbird trumpet (Epilobium canum) kicks into bloom in late summer and early fall and the red flowers are spectacular! Until then it sits around...
The San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona “provides critical stopover habitat for millions of migrating birds each year and is home to 84 species...
I neglected to mention that milkweeds are no longer in their own family Asclepiadaceae, but have now been included in the dogbane family Apocynaceae....