Arizona's Amazing Plants

Arizona's flora, so remarkable in its variety, thrives in the most diverse environments imaginable: from high alpine peaks to low salty playas, and from cool wet canyons to sunbaked sand dunes. Within these different landscapes, the yo-yo effects of sometimes extreme heat and severe cold, or of deluge and drought, have created some amazing plant shapes and life-styles.

The genetically programmed strategies that wild plants and animals use to beat the odds in Arizona's "environmental lottery" are fascinating to study. Plant strategies are even more impressive when you consider that green things cannot just scamper away when conditions get tough. They have to sit there and take whatever the environment dishes out, season after season.

One ruse we see among Arizona's wily plants is the "hideaway strategy." The ajo lily or desert lily, whose showy white flower periodically graces Arizona's hottest sand dune country, is in hiding most of its life. In times of drought, the small onion-like bulb rests deep in its sandy lair, and may actually wait several years for the appropriate amount of moisture from penetrating winter rains. Then, with a haste made advisable by the desert's abrupt changes of mood, up rises a slender round stalk full of buds. Long, wavy-edged leaves curling across the sandy surface trace delicate windmill patterns as the breeze rotates them. In February, white bugle-shaped flowers open just inches above the dune sand. The early morning air is filled with a rare perfume. Any pollinator within range makes a beeline for the fragrance. If moist weather prevails into spring, flower spikes continue to grow. One April I saw ajo lilies waist high, with plump seed capsules all the way down the stalks-one of those rare good years for ajo lily regeneration.

Southwestern natives considered ajo lily a delicacy-when they could find it. They would slow-bake the plants or simply eat the garlic-flavored bulbs raw. Today you must enjoy this tidbit only as folklore, for the ajo lily is protected by law.

Ajo (pronounced ab-ho) is Spanish for garlic, and some say the town of Ajo was named for the lily. But according to Barnes' and Granger's Arizona Place Names, the name was derived from a Tohono O'odham word meaning "paint." Colorful minerals in the vicinity were once used for body painting by the desert people.

Like the ajo lily, Arizona's nightblooming cereus survives drought by the hideaway strategy. In the theatrical world of spectacular flowers, nothing quite compares with the nocturnal performance of this improbable cactus. In a glorious one-night stand, all the wild cereus plants scattered over a wide area open simultaneously, triggered by desert showers. When the blossom's delicate white petals unfold like the graceful gestures of an eight-inch ballerina, they reflect starlight and moonlight, becoming a beacon for airborne pollinators. Chief of these is a night-flying hawk moth. As an added attraction, the nocturnal showpiece emits a deliciously sweet scent to let the hawk moth know that a reward awaits. This gentle giant-among-insects hovers like a hummingbird at the flower and unfurls its long tongue down the floral tube, sodastraw style, for a sip of nectar. In the process, the hawk moth's fuzzy body becomes liberally dusted with pollen from a shower of stamens. Moving on to the next night-bloomer for another drink, the hawk moth and its load of pollen coat the stigma of another flower-and crosspollination is accomplished once again.

Virtually invisible in daylight, even to the trained eye, the twiggy stem of the cereus rests deceptively among the branches of less palatable shrubs. The camouflaged stems spring from large foodstoring tubers, some weighing up to 43 pounds. Indians once ate them, but these cacti, like the ajo lily, are now protected in the wild.

Home gardeners can adopt this royal plant themselves. Night-blooming cereus, also known as Arizona queen of the night, is available from most commercial cactus growers and at botanical garden sales throughout the state.

Some April or May, if you're passing through the wide-open Arizona Strip or the Painted Desert, chances are good that you'll encounter one of a rare and devoted breed of plant explorer that includes Jeannette Milne, Clay May, and Barbara Phillips. If so, he or she will likely be on hands and knees among the junipers intently searching the ground. Object of the quest of these botanists is any of a group of diminutive cactus gems known collectively as the genus Pediocactus, which includes some of the rarest plants in North America.

Urgent efforts are now under way to save certain kinds of Pediocactus that are looking extinction right in the face. Impact of dam construction, damage by off-road vehicles, and loss to unscrupulous or uninformed cactus collectors have caused Pediocactus numbers to drop to a level where federal protection is necessary. It is a tragedy that would-be collectors do not know that Pediocactus, when transplanted from the wild, simply does not survive in "captivity." The Arboretum at Flagstaff is on red alert, with rows of greenhouse flats bristling with young Pediocactus grown from seed. The goal is to save the genetic material and the beauty of these endangered species for the future, and someday to replant healthy popula tions back in the wild.

Like the night-blooming cereus, timing is critical in noticing the Pediocactus at all. Amazingly, this little ball of spines will shrink below the soil surface to survive the stress of prolonged dry weather. It is noticed only after it swells with winter moisture and pushes up out of the ground. For a few days in spring, a one-inch fountain of delicate pastel petals hides the rest of the plant, as if the rocky ground itself were flowering.

On a bouldery slope in the rugged mountains north of Phoenix stands the athletic form of a woman in hiking shorts and heavy boots, binoculars to her eyes, scanning the slopes. Her gaze comes to rest on another rarity of Arizona's plant world, the leafy rosette of a Toumey century plant, an agave of modest size. Wendy Hodgson, with the Desert Botanical Garden at Phoenix as her base, is studying century plants from many angles the artistic, the human, the scientific and seeking out the Toumey agave in the few remote spots in southcentral Arizona where it is known in nature. A clumsy, slow-moving carpenter bee lands on an upreaching spike of bright yellow flowers. Wallowing among the pollen-charged anthers for a draught of nectar, the bee swings back and forth on the slender spike like a trapeze artist. Wendy drops the tethered binoculars to her waist and grabs for her hip-pocket notebook to record everything she observes: daytime flowers; no bats or even hummingbirds visiting here; flowers too short and small.... A century plant's desert survival strategy is what humans might call "ultra-patience." For several years, the agave slowly manufactures its food, storing it in a spray of stout, sometimes armored leaves, deterring would-be leaf chewers with caustic chemicals in its tissue. This succulent rosette can seal off, patiently hanging in there through lean years, then open up to drink like a camel and grow rapidly

Amazing Plants

during rainy periods. After 10 to 20 years (seeming like 100 to some-hence the name), the century plant has stored enough energy for one big show, its only chance to blossom and exchange genes for future generations.

Truly the belle of the century plant family, the Toumey agave grows as a perky green starburst among the boulders, the highlight of its natural rock garden.

There's oil in the desert, even when no one's drilling for it. An all-female crew is out harvesting the liquid, and it's said they can come up with about 1/3 pints per acre. That's no tall tale. The female gatherers are mother bees of the Centris genus, solitary members of the large family of socalled "digger bees." They gather oil instead of nectar.

One of their principal sources is another of Arizona's incredible plants, the lowprofile ratany. This generic "scrub" has never enjoyed any real press. It is one of those plants even slow-paced ramblers seldom take note of, although it is fairly common around the metropolitan areas of the state. If it were suddenly removed from a familiar stretch of country, you'd probably think, "Something is missing; but I can't tell just what...."

Amazing Plants

Good winter or spring rains will spur ratany into a brief and often profuse flowering from April to June. The gray twiggy shrub turns almost lavender. Close up, you are in for a real treat, especially if you have a pocket magnifier for full visual impact. Three petals stand like flamenco dancers dressed in magenta and lime-green tiered skirts. Two other petals are more like orange lobes at the feet of the dancers. It is these lobes or oil glands that the solitary bee seeks. With her rasping front and middle legs, she scrapes for oil and carries the nutritious prize to her eggs as future energy food for the bee hatchlings. This relatively new discovery has pollination biologists like Steve Buchmann at the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Carl Hayden Bee Laboratory focusing on a whole new line of research. Ratany's key to survival is its “panhandling strategy.” It grows to its sparse threefoot size as a root parasite. Ratany uses the roots of adjacent creosotes or brittlebushes to do the toughest job of all for any desert dweller-bringing up the water.

The person who named Monoptilon bellioides (pronounced belly-oy-deez) may have had a sense of humor. “Bellioides” actually means “similar to the white daisy,” but the sound of the name suggests that this herb is in fact the classic “belly flower.” You've got to be almost prone (or under five years old!) to notice it. Each tiny daisy-like bloom is no bigger than a toenail, blooming in a cluster like a pocket mouse's minibouquet. Monoptilon's is a “close-up-shop strategy.” It seals off its life-support system to pass through the hot, dry season as a timevoyaging seed. One saturating winter rain and it goes into action mode, germinating and flowering in short order. Flowers from March are already in seed by May. Although tiny, Monoptilon is sometimes so profuse that it appears as white patches on the pebbly desert surface. You can find concentrations in low desert areas from central Arizona westward. For best viewing, go ahead and look ridiculous. Get down on all fours, derriere elevated like a darkling beetle, and enjoy the search.

One of the most unlikely plants on earth resides in the shifting sands of the Yuma desert in southwestern Arizona. Sand-food thrives as a fleshy stalk reaching deep into the sand, with only its sturdy flower cap exposed. Seeing is hardly believing this incredible plant. Sand-food caps lie in hiding under parched desert shrubs. If wind has blown out the sand from beneath the caps, they stand like gray mummified mushrooms on their stalks. In April or May, atop each “mushroom” cap appear circles of miniature violet flowers imbedded in the fuzzy, sand-dusted platform. Sand-food is another “panhandler,” gaining nutrients and water through roots of adjacent shrubs. This specialized relationship of shrub and sand-food has persisted since time immemorial-no major harm done to the hard-working host, and certain survival for the free-loading sand-food. “Dune root,” as the western Tohono O'odham Indians called it, kept these resourceful desert people from starvation where human survival was tenuous. In his book Gathering the Desert, which brought him the 1986 Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing, author Gary Nabhan relates a frontier incident in which a military explorer watches in squeamish disapproval as his Indian scout prepares the weird-looking sand-food to eat. When politeness dictates that he try a bite, the officer is amazed to find it far more tasty than his own camp food supply. Today, thoughtless off-road vehicle riders can wreak widespread destruction of this marvelous plant. Conversely, by giving sand dune shrubs a wide berthno matter how dead-looking they may Arizona Highways' Scenic Wall Calendar is a visual celebration of the state's natural beauty. Month after month, it features full-color images by some of the world's leading photographers. The handsome format offers easy-to-read dates and plenty of room for appointments and reminders. The 1989 wall calendar starts with December 1988, providing a full 13 months of value. Wire-bound, it measures 9 by 12 inches, folded. And we supply mailing envelopes for orders of two or more calendars. $4.95 each, plus shipping and handling. Purchase Arizona Highways wall calendars for your holiday gift-giving. Just complete the attached catalog order form, or write or visit Arizona Highways, 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009. Telephone orders may be placed by calling (602) 258-1000 or dialing toll-free (within Arizona) 1-800-543-5432.

Appear-riders can help preserve the amazing sand-food plant and its lifesustaining hosts.

High on Arizona's lofty San Francisco Peaks grow Arizona's amazing bristlecone pines. Steadfastly “taking it” in a climate sometimes resembling the Arctic, the bristlecones may lie contorted or prostrate where any would-be vertical shoot has been blasted by wind-driven snow. But in sheltered spots downslope, the trees stand erect as handsome veterans of the high country, their dark, dense needles hugging the branches up to 30 years before being shed. Tree-ring expert Tom Harlan, like Tolkien's long-legged Strider, has ranged over almost every tree-studded mountain in Arizona, his trusty increment borer in hand ready to probe harmlessly into the heartwood of trees for historic secrets they may contain. Harlan and Dr. Don Graybill, venturing forth from the University of Arizona's renowned Laboratory of Treering Research, recently located Arizona's oldest known tree. Now more than 1,400 years of age, this ancient bristlecone pine was already 500 years old when Sunset

Crater, just a few miles away, shot glowing cinders skyward about A.D. 1066.

Most of us do not think of ferns as desert plants, but some are perfectly adapted to the frequent droughts and rare wet peri-ods of the Sonoran Desert. Standley's cloak fern is another plant you don't notice at all until after a good rain. Within hours, the cloak fern's fronds unfurl, turning boulder-strewn hillsides into a patchwork of dark rich green. There may be some solutions to the problem of food storage on long-term space flights in this resilient plant. In dry weather, cloak fern has the ability to curl down to a dusty brown coil, losing more than 50 percent of its water content! Such a feat is unknown in most living tissue-plant or animal.

Ferns are unexpected as desert plants because part of their life cycle depends on dampness for the pairing of free-swimming reproductive cells.

You can spot this inconspicuous plant by looking for small green stars or "stencil Christmas trees" in shady rock crevices. Undersides of the leaves resemble vivid yellow, waxy snowflakes.

It is interesting to speculate about early desert periods in the geologic past, before seed plants developed. Was it a durable plant like Standley's cloak fern that decked the arid landscape of late Paleozoic time? It has qualities that represent the pinnacle of successful adaptation to desert living, which may carry it far into the future.

Man and nature have combined talents through recent centuries to develop some remarkable food plants perfectly suited to Arizona's arid setting. The most colorful example is found in the windswept mesa lands of the Hopi Indians. Generations of farmers, patiently tilling the sandy soil, have gradually developed more than a dozen delectable varieties of Hopi corn. (See Arizona Highways, January 1978.) The rich colors of Indian corn-reds and rusts, blue, bright yellow, red-and-white-striped-suggest an artist's palette. Corn plays a deeply significant role in the ceremonial cycle of Hopi life. But it was bred for more than its beauty. Each colorful variety has a distinctive culinary purpose-finely ground meal for festive piki bread, coarse meal for tamales or cornbread, whole-kernel types to be eaten as sweet corn, popcorn, in posole stew. That's specialization! Scholars who consider Mesopotamia the only cradle of food domestication haven't looked closely at the Native Americans of the Southwest. Perhaps most amazing is that corn is grown at all in the harsh exposure of the plateau country, without the aid of modern technology. The Hopi farmer gradually buries his seedling corn stems, encourag-ing roots to extend down where rainfall can escape evaporation. He will harvest several 15-inch ears from stalks standing no higher than his waist! With a look forward inspired by Arizona's rich cultural past, organizations such as Tucson-based Native Seeds/SEARCH are working to preserve the irreplaceable genetic information in kernels of Hopi corn and other heirloom crops. These humble seeds contain the results of the wisdom and effort of count-less native farmers, and represent a priceless gift for the future.

Author's note: In addition to the many municipal, state, and national parks and monuments within Arizona, the following places enable plant lovers and photographers to observe Arizona's amazing flora: Boyce Thompson Southwestern Arboretum near Superior, Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, the Arboretum at Flagstaff, Tucson Botanical Gardens, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson Mountain Park, Tohono Chul Park in northwest Tucson, and Yuma Botanical Garden. Sierra Vista, too, has just founded a botanical garden. The very active Arizona Native Plant Society has chapters in all major cities and enthusiastically welcomes newcomers to its outings and programs. Within Arizona, ajo lily is not necessarily off the beaten path. Good timing and a good eye will help. Look for the unexpected-small "Easter lilies" springing from the dunes. After winter rains, scout in sandy areas off Interstate Route 8 near Tacna or along State Route 72 near Bouse and Parker. Harder to reach but good possibilities are Mohawk Dunes south of Tacna and the beautiful Pinta Sands in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge (permit required) west of Ajo. Two of the most renowned cactus growers in the world are in Arizona. Bach's Greenhouse Cactus Nursery and Tanque Verde Nursery, both in Tucson, have acres of cacti glowing with brilliant colors at bloom times. Dan Bach is a wizard of cactus propagation and has pioneered methods that are now helping to save our native cactus treasures.

Talented New Mexico and California growers deal in rare cacti grown from seed in compliance with federal law. For the serious cactus collector, buying from reputable nurseries is certainly the way to grow. Century plant fans can find beautiful examples of the Toumey agave at Tucson's Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and at the Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix. If you are not eager to climb to a 12,000-foot elevation, you can still catch a glimpse of bristlecone pines by taking only a short hike beyond Flagstaff's Fairfield Snow-bowl chairlift. Displays about tree-ring dating and its interesting applications can be seen at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff and at the Arizona State Museum on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson. For interpretive programs about tree-ring research, catch one of the tours or campfire talks given by the knowledge-able rangers at Sunset Crater and Wupatki national monuments.