Tree Cholla: Plant of the Week

If you're one of those people who rescues stray kittens, perhaps you'll understand the impulse that led me to bring home this bucket o'cholla last week. A new neighbor had apparently been inconvenienced (or perhaps attacked) by these plants outside his front door, and chopped them all down. Then he threw them across the street on untamed property. (Okay, a gulch in a horse pasture; but it's a nice gulch!) I couldn't help myself*; now I've inherited a moral obligation to give them another chance.

My motives weren't entirely altruistic. Once you get past their forbidding exterior, these are more than acceptable landscape plants, in my view. (I'm not sure kids would be as wary of them as the dogs are, but they too would learn in time.) That they are alive was confirmed by the fact that, though sprawled horizontally for a week or two, the tips had already turned up, toward the light. It's tough to kill a cactus, but it's always easier to do it with kindness than with neglect.

This cholla, Cylindropuntia imbricata, is the only species of its type to occur naturally in eastern Colorado, as far as I can tell, though we are surrounded south and west by states with many more species. (C. whipplei occurs in a few southwestern counties.) As you can see, it is not reported from the county (triangle) where Foothills Fancies is based. Like coyote gourd, it is another outlier, or perhaps an introduction, in these more northern sites. (Map adapted from USDA Plants Database.)

Kingdom Plantae – Plants
  Subkingdom Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
    Superdivision Spermatophyta – Seed plants
    Division Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
      Class Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
        Subclass Caryophyllidae
          Order Caryophyllales
            Family Cactaceae – Cactus family
              Genus Cylindropuntia (Engelm.) Kreuzinger
              Species Cylindropuntia imbricata (Haw.) F.M. Knuth
                – tree cholla

By the way, I've never actually heard anyone call it tree cholla, but maybe that's because it doesn't actually occur around here. Our other source, Weber's Colorado Flora, calls it "Candelabra Cactus." I suspect the "tree" name translates an older scientific name, Opuntia arborescens, given it by George Engelmann himself.

Here's what the one in my yard looks like today. I know, kinda droopy and repulsive. The yellowish fruits hang around all winter, until they rot or new growth pushes them off, I guess.




Ahh, but this is what it looked in recent memory, given an appropriate spring/summer.

Then, every bee and nectar-loving winged thing anywhere in the vicinity was happy, very happy, with this plant. For its ability to attract pollinators alone, this plant is worth having in your yard! Click to see insects at work.

Back to our bucket—here's a quick lesson in cholla anatomy. These branches are, of course, main stems. Leaves are briefly apparent only in season. Spines come in clusters at locations called areoles, usually at the end of bumps called tubercles. The fuzzy look to the areoles relates to the presence of tiny glochids, which our source** says are "inconsequential" here. (On other Opuntia species, it does not pay to dismiss the glochids so lightly.) One does not handle these without gloves or, preferably, tongs. Long-handled tongs.


Here's a bug's eye view. If you'd like one of these cute fuzzy stray kittens for your very own, call me!

Now I just have to go back and finish off the Myrtle Spurge that's escaping that same neighborhood yard!

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* I have trouble with the idea that living beings are disposable; hence my difficulties with Poinsettia as well.

** Colorado Flora: Eastern Slope, W.A. Weber, 1990. But see also Catalog of the Colorado Flora (which eludes me at the moment) and Flora of North America.

Coyote Semilla: Plant of the Week

In my head I still hear the pronunciation given by the 8-year-old Latina I encountered long ago in Arizona, who authoritatively informed me of this plant's name the first time I saw it.

At the risk of exposing my linguistic inadequacies, we'll do the name first. The word coyote simply must be given the proper 3-syllable twist she gave it (perhaps reflecting the original Aztec): coy-oh-tay. The 2-syllable American (ki-oat) and its monosyllabic Texas variant are as unacceptable here as the longer American ki-oh-tee. Now if only I could wrap my tongue around it as smoothly as the child did.

Semilla, though, is Spanish through and through, as far as I know, and derived from the Latin. It means seed (English speakers, think "seminal"). When you see a baseball-sized dry fruit all over the prairie, you have encountered this plant. When green, it might resemble a small watermelon, but in that state you're more likely to notice the leaves before anything else. They will be bright blue-green, almost a foot long, and arrayed on vines that sprawl widely, carrying those coyote seeds hither and yon. And they, the leaves, will smell to high heaven (hence the species name). In all, a very impressive plant.

Kingdom Plantae – Plants
  Subkingdom Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
   Superdivision Spermatophyta – Seed plants
    Division Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
     Class Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
      Subclass Dilleniidae
       Order Violales
        Family Cucurbitaceae – Cucumber family
         Genus Cucurbita L. – gourd
         Species Cucurbita foetidissima Kunth
         aka Missouri gourd, buffalo gourd, calabazilla, wild gourd

That's one reason, I guess, why we were discussing it at First Friday the other night, when several botany geeks I know get together for pizza and chat. Yesterday, Bee Lady and I went on an expedition to try to gather a fruit from the only place I know of in our county where this plant grows wild. We found the shriveled vines and leaves, and but one fruit. We took a few seeds, and left the lone gourd to finish rotting in peace. In such moribund condition, the plants weren't even worth a photo.

We chatted Friday night about how or whether the plant was used by native peoples (yes, it was!), and the Chemist reported that the rind of this fruit contains the most bitter substance known to humankind. Doesn't sound too appetizing... After we left our wild patch, we hied on over to his house to gather wildflower seed from his excellent native garden. He has gourd plants, too, but without fruit. Why not? Bee Lady speculated that, in town as he is, he lacks the appropriate pollinator. Could be—the nearest reported distribution for Coyote Gourd is several counties away to the south or the east.

We are somewhere under the red triangle. So how did it get here? A little botanical mystery. The plant site is near an old townsite, which may or may not have overlapped an earlier Indian site ("evidence" for which comes from spirits by way of psychics, but that's another story). So it could have been brought here, planted even, by humans. Or it just could be that the database, which includes only formal records (e.g., herbarium specimens), is incomplete—the plant simply hasn't been collected and reported to those who keep track of such things. Or both.

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Photo credit: Patrick J. Alexander @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database
USDA, NRCS. 2008. The PLANTS Database (6 December 2008). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

R is for Rabbitbrush

Thanks to ABC Wednesday being on "R" this week, this ubiquitous local shrub will be our first Plant of the Week. It's the yellow one in this photo, with a white aster for company.

Most of the year, Rabbitbrush (sometimes called Rubber Rabbitbrush for its latex-like sap) is not impressive, but it does have its moment in the sun. Late in the season, when it seems color is gone for good, Rabbitbrush goes into "glory" mode. This photo was taken October 5th, when the entire neighborhood was still lit up by its bloom, as it has been since early September.

The scientific name of this plant is Chrysothamnus nauseosus or Ericameria nauseosa, but its two subspecies generate a variety or three for every western state in which it occurs; at least 22 altogether. It seeds easily and is among the first to come up when opportunity—a bare patch of ground— arises. It is a composite, a member of the Asteraceae family, and produces wind-borne seeds that help account for its broad distribution across the semi-arid west.

Kingdom Plantae – Plants
 Subkingdom Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
  Superdivision Spermatophyta – Seed plants
   Division Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
    Class Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
     Subclass Asteridae
      Order Asterales
       Family Asteraceae – Aster family
        Genus Ericameria Nutt. – goldenbush
        Species Ericameria nauseosa (Pall. ex Pursh) G.L. Nesom &
          Baird – rubber rabbitbrush

One of the first things I remember learning about Rabbitbrush is its wealth of associations, mostly with insects. I was working in mined land reclamation, and it was said that if you planted Rabbitbrush on recovering land, the plants would attract some 60 different kinds of insects to begin the process of recolonizing. Much of that attraction lies in these flowers, which are insect pollinated. Last year this plant was covered with bees and Painted Lady butterflies. This year, the butterflies came through in limited numbers, but the bees still did their work.

Six weeks later now and even this last touch of color has faded, turned into plumed seeds, leaving behind the somewhat drab landscape that will be with us, when not relieved by snow, until spring.