D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
June
2009
The Desert's in the Details
Learning to appreciate the Chihuahuan Desert, up close and personal.
Story and photos by Jay W. Sharp
We have a friend — I'll call her "Janice" — who hates the desert.
She especially hates the Chihuahuan Desert, where she lives only because of family and business ties. Janice yearns for the eastern and southern states, with the lush green of their forests, the vibrant colors of fall, the richness of the sunlight, the greater frequency of rainy days, the seafood on the dining table, the stately symbols of the English-rooted historical heritage, and the vibrancy of the cities. She feels put off by the desert — the colorlessness of basin vegetation and sand dunes, the stony faces of mountain foothills and talus slopes, the harshness of the noontime sunlight, the frequent Southwest dust storms of spring, the zinging spiciness of the foods, the humble adobe symbols of our Spanish Colonial and Anglo territorial heritage, and the languid heartbeat of our communities.
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Honey mesquite catkins. |
My wife, Martha, and I also miss certain things about the eastern woodlands — the green, the autumn color, the merciful rain, wonderful seafood, the history and dear old friends. But after living in the Chihuahuan Desert for more than a quarter of a century, we feel closed in by the towering trees of the East and the South, depressed by overcast days, bored by the many bland foods, indifferent to cookie-cutter housing, and vaguely threatened by heavy traffic and pressing crowds.
We have come to relish the elemental simplicity and power of our basin-and-range Chihuahuan Desert landscape, with the warm light and long shadows of sunrise and sunset, the towering and booming thunderstorms of late summer and early fall, the mountain snowstorms of winter, the nighttime howls of the coyotes, the "red or green?" query at the Mexican food restaurants, the intensely human history within the time-burnished adobe walls, and, yes, that languid heartbeat of our communities.
I love the Chihuahuan Desert, especially, in the late spring and early summer, as it stirs after a drowsy season of chill. It is a time that invites you to turn your attention, not so much to the broad desert landscape, but rather to the details, those miniature jewels of life that spring from stone and sand.
The Basins
In the sandy, honey mesquite-covered grasslands of the desert basins, you will find, for instance, a bewildering array of prickly pear cactus species celebrating late spring and early summer with an elegant and diverse show of blossoms, with colors ranging from yellow to orange to purple. Some species, well-armed with thorns several inches in length, threaten anyone who would examine their blooms too closely. Others, equipped with spines a mere fraction of an inch in length, seem much more friendly, although they can inflict a stinging wound on those who would get too cozy. In Mexico, you will discover prickly pear pads (nopales in Spanish) and their fruits (tunas) sold in the street markets (mercados). You would use the nopales in fresh vegetable salads and the tunas in jellies.
Near the edges of the playas, you may discover the Mexican hat in bloom. The flower, shaped like a sombrero with a high green crown and a droopy yellow or reddish brown-and-yellow brim, crowns a slender stalk two or three feet high. It may bloom deep into the summer if it receives sufficient moisture. Easy to cultivate, the Mexican hat (one of the cone-flowers) has found a home, not only in the xeriscaped yards of the Southwest, but also in the lush gardens of Europe.
On the rocky and sandy rises of the Chihuahuan Desert basins, in the midst of intermingled communities of lime-green honey mesquites and dull-green creosote bushes, you often find a startling cluster of cup-shaped, scarlet blooms that proclaim the early-spring awakening of the wickedly spined claret cup hedgehog cactus. The blossoms, sometimes so dense that they resemble a miniature explosion of flowers, remain open day and night, in full bloom, for s much as a week. The plants displaying large clusters of stems, which are shaped much like prickly cucumbers, have grown over a number of years. The fruit sometimes furnished a meal for the Indians, although, some say, it often produced a fine bellyache.
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Cane cholla blooms. |
In a late springtime or early summer odyssey, you will certainly encounter the tangled fishhook cactus, the cane cholla and the soaptree yucca — all in bloom.
The tangled fishhook, a sullen plant only a few inches tall, produces small pale blooms, usually in July. Densely shrouded with fishhook-shaped thorns, it often grows in large colonies. It belongs to the mammilaria ("breast-shaped") genus of plants, some of which the Native Americans used as powerful hallucinogens during vision quests.
The brushlike cane cholla (sometimes also called the tree cholla, the walking-stick cholla or the jumping cholla), which can grow 10 feet high under favorable conditions, produces veritable bouquets of deep-purple flowers.
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Fishhook barrel cactus blooms. |
Don't, however, be seduced by their beauty. Segments of their stems use their arsenal of thorns to "jump" out and grab you like a wicked witch. The thorns break off and attach to your flesh, inflicting painful and prolonged stinging. The stems from dead tree cholla do make excellent strong and lightweight walking sticks, which you can buy in arts and crafts stores across southern New Mexico, southern Arizona and western Texas.
The soaptree yucca, with narrow, sharply pointed leaves that radiate from a center, often makes its home in shifting sand dunes. In late spring and early summer, it sends up bloom stalks that may grow some two inches a day until they produce a large cluster of white blossoms. Its flowers, strange smelling, serve as a home for the yucca moth, which pays its rent by pollinating the plant.
Mountain Foothills
In the well-drained foothills of the Chihuahuan Desert area's mountain ranges, which generally run north and south through the basins, you will encounter a new cast of desert plant characters. These include, for instance, the fishhook barrel cactus, the ocotillo and the humble lichen.
The fishhook barrel cactus, a large columnar plant with two-dozen or so vertical ribs, has always reminded me of the bellows of an accordion. When rain falls on the desert, the cactus absorbs water into its tissues, causing the column to swell. The ribs flatten, like an accordion bellows being drawn outward. Between rains, the cactus depletes its store of water. The column shrinks. The ribs become more distinctly pleated, like the accordion bellows being collapsed. The fishhook barrel cactus, crowned with yellowish-orange blooms in late summer, grows very slowly, husbanding its energy like a botanical miser. Following that prudent strategy, the plant may live for well over a century.
If the barrel cactus stands as rigid as a desert fireplug in the foothills, the ocotillo looks like a spray of long and thorny batons, which wave vigorously to the beat of spring winds. More closely related to the primrose family than the cactus family, the ocotillo leafs out only if it receives a decent rain. It blooms, however, whether the rains come or not, with fiery red clusters of flowers tipping its long stems from May into June. In Mexico, you will find ocotillo fences that rural people have built from the stems of the plant. The stems have sometimes taken root, forming a living, thorny barrier that is far more effective than a barbwire fence.