This episode is a reminiscence…something I seem to be doing a lot of lately…and also a plea for getting our children and grandchildren out of doors, be it a back yard or out to the desert.
The photos are mine. The Boy’s Book of Frogs, Toads and Salamanders came out in 1957. I got it as a present when I was 9 or 10. The duded up Sonoran Desert Toad was the logo of the country band The Dusty Chaps.
The scientific name of the black swallowtail is Papilio polyxenes. Papilio is from the Latin for butterfly and the specific epithet polyxenes is from...
Anisacanthus thurberi or desert honeysuckle is in the Acanthus family, Acanthaceae. I do like the common name cola de gallo, because it captures the...
Seeing persimmons in an abandoned orchard at the Chiricahua National Monument pulled up a childhood memory and later I found myself pulling books off...