After rereading my Virginia Creeper post, I felt the need to counterbalance those barbs I made about some of Badboulder's native plants by singing the praises of most. The high desert chaparral includes evergreen holly oak with red berries, witch hazel, junipers, cypress, rabbit bush and highly prized manzanita just to name a few. We even have a sumac dubbed the tree from heaven or, in my neighbor's words-- hell; we're doing our best to get a stand going along our wash so we call it the tree from heaven. We enjoy a multitude of wildflowers, providing us with year-round blossoms. The amazing wild verbena springs back following cold snaps with tiny purple flowers all winter long. I have cultivated orange mallow, Indian paintbrush, lupines, wild verbena, wild sunflowers, Mexican hats, Colorado four-o'clocks, and poppies with varying degrees of success. My latest venture is to line our roadway with one of a Yarnell summer's beauties-- sacred dactura.
Upon arriving in Yarnell, I walked to work which helped acquaint me with all manner of wild flowers. A mounding plant with luxuriant, long white blossoms caught my attention so I began making inquires. This was a Sacred Dactura, benefiting from irrigation. The encyclopedia related its common name of jimson weed; then, I knew why I had never seen one bloom as my mother yanked any errant jimson out of the ground declaring it would kill our cows. Slowly, through the years, dacturas began to pop up around the village but none at Badboulder. Three years ago, a splendid dactura grew along our wash. Now, four grace our driveway. Occasionally, marauding cows take advantage of Arizona's free range laws and mow down all manner of cultivated vegetation here in Yarnell but never do they munch on the dactura. If they did, I know of no citizen who would mourn their loss.
The seed pods of the dactura are spiky spheres and like the rest of the plant, poisonous if ingested. My plan is to scatter dactura pods along our roadside and hope that we can offer passersby a peek of white with lavender tinged trumpet blossoms next summer.
FROM THE KNOTHOLE: Hey, it's me. I'm back. And it's a good thing. Because there is nothing sacred about a Sacred Dactura. It is a very noxious noxious weed. It is nothing but a weed, jimson weed. The large white blossoms do have some aesthetic value. The thorny spheres might be good for some sort of art project.
a parting shot from bbman: Love your mama.
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