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 art is by Cicely Mary Barker. Friend Kat Armstrong sent it my way. Bless her heart. I had forgotten that fairies gather acorns...
There are a dozen species of Melampodium and I wonder which one Linnaeus was looking at when he honored Melampus with the genus name....
Unless you are a botanist and are comfortable keying out plants in a flora, the only way for the rest of us to identify...