Essays

Moseying: Exploring the Natural World

Wildflowers of the genus Penstemon demonstrate the diversity of WestTexas wildflowers
June 6, 2007

Every weekend in the spring I have a date with Deborah to go flower-watching. This year has been glorious, and boy, do I mean glorious! This is a year worth remembering, and to do so I have taken 2500 photographs in the last 75 days. Everywhere we have been in West Texas has had a “gizillion weeds blooming”; at the Sibley Nature Center, at Gone Native, and along hundreds of miles of roads.

“I find the best flowers!” Deborah really does. I do not know how she does it, but she will notice something and ask me to stop the car, back up (or turn around) to more closely examine something. We have been flower-watching so long most flowers that we see we have already know their name, and potential ethnobotanical use (medicine, food, material), but we do still find plants we have never seen (and she always sees them first!)

Penstemon dasyphyllus
(Click photo to enlarge)

This year we found a species of penstemon (Penstemon dasyphyllus; see photo at right) we had never seen before, and we only found two specimens just north of the Pecos River bridge north of Iraan. We had stopped to let Teddy (the dog) have a “pit stop.” Teddy was more interested in exploring than taking care of business, so we took turns holding his leash (Teddy is a 6 month old Chocolate Lab that weighs 80 pounds) counterbalancing his puppyish exhilaration. We strolled up and down the road. We picked a small bit of every species we had not yet tallied on the trip list. We keep lists of every blooming plant we see, when we go flower-watching (also referred to as “botanizing” when we discuss our passion.)

“Oh, my word! My gosh! Look at this! Come look.” When Deborah hollered, Teddy had me tied up in his leash – he had gone around me completely and then had stood up to put his paws on my chest trying to lick my face – he was so happy about being out of the car! Before we stopped, he had seemed to have an anxiety attack and had gone nuts barking and trying to get in the front seat. “We have never seen this penstemon,” she said, when I finally extricated myself and convinced Teddy to go in her direction.

I photographed the penstemon, and she picked one small bloom stalk to take back to the car. We had not brought our identification books and in that area, we probably could not have gone online with the laptop, even if we had brought that. We had decided at 3 p.m. that Saturday to dash down to the Stockton Plateau. Within 5 minutes of thinking of going, we were on the road, only stopping for gas and a soft-drink. On the hill leading down into Rankin (and the previous road cut a little further north) we had already found another species of wildflower we had never seen before – a globe-mallow (see photo below) with linear leaves and an airy delicate appearance.

Globe-Mallow
(Click photo to enlarge)

As we daytrip around the region botanizing as we go, we have noticed how different genera of plants will have different species in different habitats. Penstemons are a great example. Over in Nolan County we found Penstemon cobea, the foxglove penstemon with its big white bells streaked with pink. This species has the largest flowers of the genus in our region. Penstemon cobea has been sold by the now defunct local Native Plant Society at their annual sales, so a number of people have it in their gardens. It is a very long lived member of the genus. Many more desert species of the genus are poor garden plants because they do not like to be watered after they bloom.

In the sanddunes of Yoakum county we found the 4 foot white spires of Penstemon buckleyii. Locally we have the foot tall blue Fendler penstemon, and the wonderful pink sand penstemon blooms in every patch of loose sandy soil in the region. Down around Mertzon we found Penstemon jamesii, a species with white blossoms a foot tall that prefers gravelly limestone soils. Out at the Davis Mountains we found the 4 foot tall red spikes of Wright’s Penstemon.

Penstemons have short blooming periods – two to three weeks – so a flower-watcher always feels that something special has happened when a penstemon is seen. After finding the Penstemon dasyphyllus we expected to see more as we explored along the mesas lining the Pecos River. But we did not see any more at all. None! How utterly bizarre!

When we returned home and got out our two huge volumes of Rickett’s “Texas Wildflowers” we quickly were able to identify it. Deborah went on line, and we found more information. The most used common name in all of our references was the name Cochise Penstemon, which means it is more common in southeastern Arizona. The species has been seen from West Texas to Arizona and down into Mexico. We found it on the species list from Carlsbad Caverns National Park. It was mentioned in a Ph.D. paper about the use of the genus by hummingbirds. Two mail order seed companies offered seeds of it for sale. Several online herbaria had images of the dried specimens. Google Image only had a few pictures of it. We did discover that Charles Wright discovered the type specimen. (To learn more about Charles Wright go to our website and type in his name in the website search engine. He was one of the earliest botanists in West Texas.)

Plants receive common names where they are common. With modern Americans being much less rural, common names are no longer common, for that matter. Most of us don’t know the names of our wildflowers anymore – bluebonnets and dandelions are the only wildflowers that are part of modern “common knowledge.”

Deborah and I love wildflowers. We love the variety we find. Even though we have seen trillions upon trillions of wildflowers this spring we do not get tired of going and seeing more. If you have not gone to see the wildflowers this spring – do so. Go north on the Lamesa Highway. Take a day trip of an hour – just one little hour – I promise you that is worth it! For five miles or so along the highway on either side of the overpass 24 miles north of Midland, Bobby Holt’s Pemberton Ranch has been a constant explosion of glory for over a month. Don’t go crossing Mr. Holt’s fence, however. That is poor West Texas etiquette, you know!