Though I jabber about several plants and animals here, the plant Mimosa dysocarpa is featured. ..well, I talk about it the most I think. Velvet pod mimosa seems to love the August rains and the shrubs bloom profusely for a few weeks along arroyos and on rocky hillsides. At the Bisbee Farmers Market, I’m asked consistently, “What is that pink flowering bush along the road and on the hills?” And some folks mistakenly call it fairy duster. Well it’s not fairy duster (Calliandra eriophylla) I tell them, it’s velvet pod mimosa and I go on to tell them that it’s a very thorny shrub and it only blooms around August and the hot pink flowers fade to white in the late morning sun. How’s that for a sales pitch? Well, it is a beautiful plant and I’ve come to think of it as a signal for the end of summer and the beginning of fall. Actually just one of many signals as we are in the season of seasons and heading to fall. Yay!
The photo is mine and taken one morning on my way to the Bisbee Farmers Market.
The original version of the “El Niño Song” aired on KXCI, Tucson’s Community Radio, November 28th 1997. That version can also be found on...
I love following the drainages out of the mountains and across the deserts, observing all the plants and animals that follow them as well....
Canyon hackberry must be an old common name, because all the new literature calls it western hackberry. Western, I suppose, as opposed to the...
