Desert Plants

It is only a few minutes until we were far enough from town to where we couldn’t even see any houses. We spent many an hour on the desert during the day and night exploring all the roads that criss-crossed the mesa; and still do. Most of it had been owned by AmRep at one time or still is and the big eastern company had made dirt roads with some street signs many years before we moved there. I think they thought that they would be able to sell lots and lots of housing areas like the one where our home was. Those roads aren’t used by any but those that want to explore the desert. There are more homes scattered over the desert now, but then there were very few.

The whole area is covered with desert sage, saltwing bushes, tumbleweeds, some wild flowers, and juniper trees with a few of pinons which is the state tree of New Mexico. Pinon meaning pine in Spanish. The pinon on the desert is a small, usually stunted, short needled pine tree that takes a long time to grow. Many people, especially the native Indians, and Mexicans have family outings in the fall to gather the pinon nuts that fall out of the pinecones produced by the pinon trees. Pinon nuts were a staple in the diet of many of the southwestern Native Americans. The nuts are a favorite of most desert critters like squirrels, deer, and birds. I don’t care for them overly. They are a kind of mealy, not sweet but not bitter nut. It is thought that people can get hanta virus from eating nuts that have been stored in the nests of packrats, and mice, so you need to be really careful when collecting or buying them

The juniper trees are more numerous than the pinons and most of them are very old all the way too ancient. Some botanists think that many may be several hundred years old. Most are what are called alligator junipers due to their very rough bark. Most of the juniper wood is pitted with sand because of the blowing sand on the desert and are hard to cut with an ax or even a chainsaw. It is a horrid shame each time one of these old trees is cut down as many are when houses are built. I know where there are several where the trunks have been rubbed by the cattle until the wood is very smooth and looks polished. Our desert junipers in NM can live on less water than about any plant except many a cactus.Another reason everyone is so sure the junipers have been here for so long is that if you are lucky and know what you are looking for you can find rocks that are actually petrified juniper tree. I have quite a collection of the ones I have found. Some quite large but others are very small. This kind of petrified wood isn’t as pretty as the ones found in the Petrified Forest in the northeast corner of Arizona but it is still petrified wood. Because the bark on the juniper trees is so rough you can usually tell a piece of petrified wood because it has kept the shape of the tree bark.


There are many cactus on the desert but the most common is the cholla. There are lots of different kinds of cholla but this one is the only one I know of in NM. But I don’t its correct botanical name. Some people call chollas jumping cactus thinking the spines will jump at anyone that gets near the cactus but that isn’t actually true. They will rub off on you at the slightest little touch which makes people think they have jumped at them.


Other cactus are the pricklypear with yellow blossoms that you can make pricklypear jelly out of the editable fruit in the fall. You need to gather the fruit with tongs, (Indians usually used two sticks) then cook them in a pot of boiling water to soften the stickers before putting the fruit through a sieve to get just the juice for the jelly. Mother taught me to eat the fruit while in the desert by rolling the fruit on the ground to get rid of the stickers, blow of the dirt and sand, cut open the fruit and eat the juicy pulp inside the skin. This fruit is loved by just about all desert animals.


Another cactus I frequently find is several different types of claret cup cactus. Most are round or short upright, about 3 to 8 inches, of very sticky cactus. I keep several in pots by the house. They all have shades of red or orange blossoms in the spring. There is another cactus similar to the claret cup but with beautiful shade of purple blossom.



There are a few century plants on the desert, a plant that is kin to the yucca and lives for a very long time. It is said that they don’t bloom until they are a century old, and die after blooming. Usually they are twenty five to fifty years old. After blooming they put on baby plantlets and then die. They only bloom once. The stalk that has the small blossoms on it can get up to twelve feet tall and you can almost watch them grow they grow so fast.


The small native New Mexico yucca is very common on the desert and will usually bloom each spring. The yucca is the state flower of New Mexico. The Spanish called them the ‘candles of the lord’ as the white blossoms shown well even at night.
http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/flowers/nm_yucca_flower.htm
The ones on our desert here don’t usually get over about three feet tall but there are the really big ones in the southwestern part of the state. The big ones will grow in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho if you get one from a nursery and are very lucky not to over water it or under water it when it is first getting started. There is a nice bunch of them on Southern Blvd. in Rio Rancho.


Another of my favorite wild flowers is called Indian Paint Brush. It is a low growing plant usually found on the desert with bright orange flowers. For the life of me I can’t see why it is called a Paint Brush as I can’t see any resemblance to a paint brush at all. My mom used to say you had to have a lot of imagination to see the paint brush.