I wrote this song about Lycium fremontii when I was managing the native plant nursery of Desert Survivors on West Starr Pass in Tucson. The nursery is located right beside the Santa Cruz River at the base of A Mountain (Sentinel Peak). I used to perform the song whenever I did slide show talks and a version of it ended up on The Best of Growing Native Volume III. This is yet another version. I love the chorus and have always envisioned the song being part of a musical about Tucson or the Sonoran Desert that surrounds it. I’m looking for investors…I’m kidding.
I have so many 35 mm slides of this shrub and its flowers and fruit, but no digital photos, so the photo used here is by Tom Van Devender. He is a botanist, ecologist, biologist and a wonderful fellow. I thank him.
When I was making the “dried seed to collect for display” list for you I should have said “screwbean mesquite beans”, not “seed,” but...
Aerial gunning of coyotes gets Petey thinking. Oh dear. It is mind boggling that there is still an agency in the USDA called Wild...
Petey waxes poetic about the plants and animals found around his little homestead and finally focuses on a plant called Mentzelia pumila. Let’s listen.