Part 16

Foliage of the Ironwood is dense and evergreen, and the wood is very heavy and so hard that it cannot be worked with ordinary tools. When thoroughly dry, it makes high-quality firewood, and as a result it has been cut and removed over much of the desert, hence mature trees are becoming relatively scarce. Indians used the wood for arrow points and as tool handles.

Ironwood trees grow along desert washes, often in company with Mesquite and Paloverde. Blossoms are much more numerous in some years than in others. Although the trees, when in bloom, make a spectacular showing, they are very difficult to capture on color film, and photographs that do them justice are rare. Seeds, which mature late in the summer, are roasted and eaten by desert Indians who prize them for their peanut-like flavor. They are eaten also by various desert animals.

In Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and in some other parts of the desert, Ironwood trees have become heavily infested with Mistletoe which stunts or kills the branches and produces grotesque, tumor-like swellings.

VIOLET

Common names: ASTER, DESERT ASTER, MOHAVE-ASTER, TANSY ASTER Arizona desert: (Aster tephrodes). Amethyst blue. April-October. California desert: (Aster abatus). Violet to lavender. March-May. Texas desert: (Aster tanacetifolius). Bright violet. June-October. Sunflower family. Size: Few inches to 2½ feet tall.

Since the Aster is one of the most widespread and best-known of the flowers, it is usually easily recognized. There are many species, principally perennials, ranging from low-growing, single-stemmed plants, sprawling, many-stemmed plants with large flowers, to tall bushes. Desert species are found on dry, rocky hillsides and along roadsides and on waste ground.

The Aster is by no means restricted to the desert. Over much of the United States they are considered as fall bloomers, but many species blossom in the spring while others are at their floral best in midsummer.

VIOLET

Common names: PENTSTEMON, BEARDTONGUE Arizona desert: (Pentstemon pseudospectabilis). Rose-purple. April-July. California desert. (Pentstemon thurberi). Blue-purple. April-June. Texas desert: (Pentstemon fendleri). Blue-purple. April-June. Figwort family. Size: Perennial herbs from a few inches high to 3 feet or more tall.

Widespread through the Southwest at nearly all elevations, the Penstemons are conspicuous herbs or small shrubs with showy flowers that attract attention and admiration when they are in bloom in the spring and early summer on the desert.

PURPLE

Common names: LUPINE, BLUEBONNET Arizona desert: (Lupinus sparsiflorus). Violet-purple. January-May. California desert: (Lupinus odoratus). Royal purple. April-May. Texas desert: (Lupinus havardi). Blue-purple. March-April. Pea family. Size: Bushy, and up to 2 or 2½ feet tall.

Lupines are among the old dependables of spring display flowers of the desert, usually mingling with other blossoming herbs to create the bright color pattern for which the desert is famous in early spring, but occasionally growing in pure stands. Ranging in color from pale pink to deep purple, the Lupines are usually considered as blue flowers.

The name “Lupine” comes from the Latin word meaning wolf and was applied to these plants because they were believed to rob the soil of its fertility. Actually, they prefer the poorer, sandy soils and, by fixing in the soil nitrogen that they, in common with other plants of the pea family, are able to obtain from the air, they actually improve the land on which they grow.

Perhaps the best known display of Lupines takes place each spring in Texas. Here the “Bluebonnet” (L. texensis and L. subcarnosus) has been named the state flower of Texas, and the annual spring display attracts thousands of people to the areas of heavy bloom. The majority of Lupines have handsome flowers, some species are fragrant, and several species are cultivated as ornamentals. The seeds of a few species contain alkaloids which are poisonous to livestock, especially sheep.

PURPLE

Common names: BROOMRAPE, BURROWED STRANGLER, CANCER-ROOT Arizona, California, and Texas deserts: (Orobanche ludoviciana). Brownish-purple. March-July. Broomrape family. Size: 4 to 15 inches tall.

This root parasite, although not common, is sufficiently strange and striking in appearance to arrest attention. Its purple to yellowish-brown, leafless flower stalks somewhat resembling coarse shoots of asparagus rise above the desert soil, usually in open, sandy locations.

Broomrape, of which there are several species, is found throughout the Southwest from southern Utah and Nevada to Texas, California, and Mexico.

The plant is parasitic on the roots of a number of different plants, but the desert species usually parasitize Burrobush, Bur-sage, and other composites. Flowers are small, purple with brown and white markings, and monopolize the plant stalk in the absence of foliage.

Underground parts of the plant were eaten by Southwestern Indians. The name “Cancer-root” refers to the reported efficacy of treatment in applying the stems of the plant to ulcers.

PURPLE

Common names: MILKVETCH, LOCOWEED, RATTLEWEED, WOOLLY-LOCO Arizona and California deserts: (Astragalus nuttalianus). White-purple. February-May. Texas deserts: (Astragalus mollissimus). Purple. April-May. Pea family. Size: 4 to 12 inches high.

A very large genus of plants, with 78 species recorded in Arizona alone, Astragalus ranges from the driest, hottest parts of the desert to high mountain peaks and the far north. A. nuttalianus is the commonest of the desert species and is found on dry plains, mesas, and slopes below 4,000 feet from Arkansas and Texas westward to California and south into Mexico.

Some of the species, of which Mollisimus (Wooly-loco) is one, contain a poisonous constituent causing the well-known and often fatal loco disease of livestock, particularly horses. (Loco is a Spanish word meaning “crazy.”) Other species which prefer soils rich in selenium take up enough of that toxic mineral to make them poisonous to livestock, especially sheep.

Nearly all of the species are colorful and spectacular when in blossom, and some of them have a rank, disagreeable odor.

PURPLE

Common names: PURPLE NIGHTSHADE, GROUNDCHERRY, WILD POTATO, (TROMPILLO), HORSENETTLE Arizona and California deserts: (Solanum xanti). Purple. April-August. Texas desert: (Solanum elaeagnifolium). Purple-violet. May-September. Potato family. Size: Up to 3 feet.