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.
The scientific name of the black swallowtail is Papilio polyxenes. Papilio is from the Latin for butterfly and the specific epithet polyxenes is from...
Well, every year I find the the same male box turtle in a monsoon puddle out by our front gate. A friend asked how...
I like the name sumac. I learned it when I was a kid in Kentucky. The most talked about sumac of my youth was...