Part 10

YELLOW

Common names: TARBUSH, VARNISHBUSH Arizona and Texas deserts: (Flourensia cernua). Yellow. July-December. Sunflower family. Size: A small shrub 3 feet, occasionally 6 or 7 feet high.

These resinous, much-branched, perennial shrubs are found on plains and mesas at elevations around 4,000 feet from western Texas to eastern Arizona and south into Mexico. The yellow, nodding flower heads are small, and the leaves have a hop-like odor and a bitter flavor unpalatable to cattle.

In northern Mexico the leaves and dried flower heads are sold in the drug markets under the name of hojase, recommended, in the form of a brew, as a remedy for indigestion.

YELLOW

Common names: MESQUITE, HONEY MESQUITE Arizona, California and Texas deserts: (Prosopis juliflora). Yellow. April-June. Pea family. Size: Tree 15 to 25, rarely 30 feet high.

Mesquite (mess-KEET) is one of the commonest and most widespread of desert trees, often growing in extensive thickets. It occurs at elevations below 5,000 feet, usually along streams, desert washes, or in locations where the water table is relatively high, from Kansas to California and south into Mexico. Roots are reported to penetrate to a depth of 60 feet with more wood below ground than above. In some parts of the desert, blowing sand settles around Mesquite clumps forming hummocks through which rodents tunnel.

The numerous branches are armed with sturdy, straight thorns. In the spring when covered with bright green leaves and laden with catkin-like clusters of greenish-yellow flowers, Mesquite is a particularly handsome shrub or tree. Blossoms are fragrant and attract myriads of insects, including Honeybees.

During pioneer days, Mesquite wood was of the utmost importance to settlers as fuel, and was also used extensively in building corrals and in making furniture and utensils. With the exception of Ironwood, Mesquite is the best firewood to be found in the desert, giving off a characteristic aroma and forming a long-lived bed of coals.

Fruits of the Mesquite, which resemble string beans, ripen in autumn and are eaten by domestic livestock and other animals. They are rich in sugar and still form a staple food among natives. Indians made wide use of Mesquite, the fruits often carrying them over periods when their crops failed. Pinole, a meal made by grinding the long, sweet pods, was served in many ways. When fermented, it formed a favorite intoxicating drink of the Pimas. The gum, which exudes through the bark, was eaten as candy, and was used as a pottery-mending cement, and as a black dye.

YELLOW

Common names: SCREWBEAN, FREMONT SCREWBEAN, SCREWPOD MESQUITE, (TORNILLO) Arizona, Texas, and California deserts: (Prosopis pubescens). Yellow. May-June. Pea family. Size: Shrub, or tree up to 20 feet.

Although the Screwbean, so called because of the tight spiral curl formed by the seed pod, is not as common as Honey Mesquite, it is nearly as widespread, being found below 4,000 feet from western Texas to southern Nevada, and southern California to northern Mexico. The majority of the trees are small and shrubby.

Fruits, in common with those of Honey Mesquite, are used by Indians and livestock for food. Bark from the roots was used by the Pima Indians to treat wounds. Where abundant, the wood is used for fence posts, tool handles, and fuel. Birds, particularly the Crissal Thrasher, make use of the shreddy bark for nest-lining material.

Where Screwbean and Honey Mesquite grow together, they may be distinguished in the winter when trees are leafless and fruits have fallen or been removed by animals, by the gray-barked twigs of the Screwbean, those of the Honey Mesquite being brownish red.

Some botanists prefer to classify Screwbean as genus Strombocarpa.

YELLOW

Common names: GOLDFIELDS Arizona desert: (Baeria chrysostoma). Yellow. March-May. Sunflower family. Size: Low growing, usually under 6 inches.

After winters of particularly heavy precipitation, these small close-growing annuals with their sunflower-like blossoms cover large patches of desert with a carpet of gold. Individual flowers are so small and so inconspicuous among larger plants that they are easily passed unnoticed, but millions of the plants all in blossom at the same time make a spectacular display that attracts visitors from considerable distances.

They occur in Arizona below 3,600 feet, westward to California, Lower California, and north to Oregon. A plant of winter and early springtime, Goldfields takes advantage of winter moisture and cool spring weather to produce its flowers and mature its seeds. Thus it escapes the heat and drought of the desert by lying dormant in the seed stage until the moisture and cool temperatures of the following winter awaken it.

In common with Goldpoppy and other annuals that mature their seeds before the summer heat descends upon the desert, Goldfields cannot correctly be called a “desert plant.” Actually these are plants of cooler climes which have found winter conditions in the desert ideal for their needs and have established themselves.

These plants demonstrate effectively one method, that of escaping the heat and drought, by which plants have adapted themselves to survival in the desert. Like the winter tourist, they take advantage of ideal climatic conditions of winter and spring. Since, unlike the winter tourist, they cannot return north for the summer, they take the next best course and pass through the hot, dry period in the dormancy of the seed phase of their life cycles.

YELLOW

Common name: SUNRAY Arizona desert: (Enceliopsis argophylla). Bright yellow. April-June. California desert: (Enceliopsis covillei). Lemon-yellow. April-June. Sunflower family. Size: Perennial, 1 to 2½ feet tall.

The large, solitary, coarse flower heads with their yellow petals make the Sunrays among the most impressive composites of the desert.

Flowers rise on stout stems above a luxuriant growth of leaves that make the plants appear almost egotistical in their elegant arrogance.

They are at their best in sandy washes and on dry slopes at elevations between 1,000 and 3,500 feet, often where other plants seem too hard pressed eking out an existence to produce the garish foliage and bloom achieved by the Sunray.

YELLOW