Cowboy's Delight

Not what you expected?

On my tree-following expedition last week, I saw patch after patch of Sphaeralcea coccinea in full bloom. For many years I knew it as Scarlet Globemallow—not surprising given the orange-scarlet flowers. Then last year I learned it's also called Cowboy's Delight. Cute name, but is it appropriate?

Members of a small impromptu focus group thought not. "Ma'am, a cowboy needs more than a flower to be delighted" explained one fellow. Another—Wyoming-born-and-raised—also was skeptical. "Cowboys don't like flowers unless their cows eat 'em."

Well, pardner ... cows DO eat 'em.

Animals graze and browse on the tastiest things available, so aggies and wildlifers rate plants as to palatability. However taste varies among species. And for a given beast, palatability depends on time of year, available moisture, and other site characteristics. But in general cows and elk find Scarlet Globemallow fairly tasty, while horses don't. Sheep love it (palatability excellent). Some small birds eat the fruits; bison, prairie dogs, jack rabbits, and various rodents utilize the plants for forage. It's especially palatable and important for pronghorn antelope.

This gal seemed to be curious as to what I was doing but then went back to eating.

Pronghorn's Delight, thriving next to a dirt road in open sunny habitat.

Sphaeralcea coccinea is a long-lived deep-rooted perennial subshrub that may grow to about a foot tall. Leaves are gray-green and deeply lobed. Flowers are pink to deep orange to scarlet, and are clustered at the tips of stems and branches.

Stellate hairs make the foliage gray-green. Matt Lavin on Flickr.

Many styles emerge from tubes of joined stamens, typical of the mallow family. Matt Lavin on Flickr.

Scarlet Globemallow is native and widespread in drier parts of the American West. It's extremely drought-tolerant, growing in full sunlight and avoiding shade, making it an excellent species to mix with grasses in reclamation. Perhaps this exceptional hardiness is what delights a cowboy. The colorful almost-gaudy flowers can appear unexpectedly, even during the driest summers, bringing a moment of pleasure to the cowpoke on his long hot dusty ride.

Sources

Biodiversity Institute, Wyoming Native Gardens. Scarlet Globemallow, Cowboy's Delight

NRCS USDA 2009. Plant Guide, Scarlet Globemallow, Sphaeralcea coccinea. PDF

Southwest Colorado Wildflowers. Sphaeralcea

Tree-following: Junipers in July

My field assistant stayed home (too warm). But I managed to find both my trees and the shutter release button, thereby verifying my visit.

Several months had passed since I last visited the Rocky Mountain Junipers I'm following this year. What a changed landscape! We had a cool wet spring, and a cool wet summer so far. Many are wondering—have we've ever seen the Laramie Basin so green so late?

I suppose it still looks arid to those elsewhere. But for us, this is LUSH!

Needle-and-Thread, Hesperostipa (Stipa) comata.

It was impossible to capture the grass diversity in a photo. For example there are least four species in the one below: Needle-and-Thread, Indian Ricegrass, Blue Grama, and Western Wheatgrass.

Grass enthusiasts can click to enlarge the image and search for species.

I soon left the trail to cross slabby limestone to the junipers I'm following.

Hello little Limber Pine. I'm back.

There was a light breeze at most so for the first time I was able to photograph the foliage and "berries" (technically fleshy cones). Only the darker tree (above) has berries. They are yellow brown, perhaps immature. It is said that they take two years to mature and turn a glaucous blue.

Berries can barely be spotted in the foliage.

But I wonder—will these berries mature? They look a bit sickly to me, maybe from our multi-year drought. We shall see.

This is my contribution to the July gathering of Tree Followers, kindly hosted by The Squirrelbasket. More news here.

Tree-following: What to do on a windy Wyoming day?

Mid-photo are the two Rocky Mountain Junipers I'm following, at the base of the Laramie Mountains.

The approach was not a problem.

A few days ago I made a short excursion to visit the junipers I'm following this year. Average wind speed was 28 miles per hour, with gusts to 40. From a distance this wasn't a problem. But up close the trees were frantically waving in the blustery southeasterly wind, portent of an approaching storm system. Indeed it rained buckets the next two days!

Photo at highest shutter speed allowed.

So I took photos of a neighboring plant instead. It was less than 2 cm tall and not much bothered by the wind.

Even after wandering out here all these years, I'm still impressed and astonished that plants can become established and survive in a tiny crevice or depression in bare rock, exposed to the desiccating Wyoming wind. I wonder how old this one is?

The leaves are covered in silky hairs.

The scientific name of this plant is Tetraneuris acaulis (Pursh) Greene var. caespitosa A. Nels. There's an interesting bit of history encoded here. F.T. Pursh was the first to name the species (Gaillardia acaulis), in 1814. Then in 1898, E.L. Green moved it to the genus Tetraneuris. In the meantime our very own Aven Nelson, Father of Wyoming Botany, found populations in the Laramie area that were different enough to be be recognized as a new variety. "Its matted habit, silky-lanate leaves and very short scapes [flowering stems] easily separate it." he wrote in 1899. Nelson's 1898 collection from the "Laramie Hills" was the type specimen (basis for description) for the new variety.

From the Rocky Mountain Herbarium, U. Wyoming. Click image to view labels.

Zooming in (below), we see this is a member of the daisy or aster family (Asteraceae). What some would interpret as a single flower is actually many tiny ones: a round cluster of disc flowers surrounded by ray flowers with strap-like united petals.

Nelson provided no common name, so I checked the Integrated Taxonomic Information System, supported and used by many North American governmental agencies. Officially, this is the Caespitose Four-nerve Daisy, a translation of the Latin. But there's gotta be something better! I suggest Nelson's Silky Stemless Daisy :)

Sources

Information about taxonomic and nomenclatural history of plant species is available at Tropicos, often with links to historical literature, including the wonderful offerings of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. That's where I found Aven Nelson's 1899 article about the genus Tetraneuris.

This is my rather tangential contribution to news from the tree-followers who gather monthly. More here. Thanks to The Squirrelbasket for continuing to host!

April Tree-following—about that Lichen

Several days ago, we headed off to visit the trees I'm following this year. It was a warmish sunny day that felt like spring, finally. And it was very windy, as is often the case in spring.

The two Rocky Mountain Junipers were looking good. The midday light showed their difference in color. The darker tree is the one with "berries" (fleshy cones) on the leeward side. Almost all are yellow. Two seasons are needed for berries to mature. Last year must have been a good one, given all the yellow berries. If the experts are right, this year we will watch them turn blue black.

With so much wind, sharp closeup photos were impossible.

Last month I included photos of a lichen that is really common on the ground in this area. Several readers responded with id suggestions and information—thanks!

Mystery lichen in March.

You probably know that lichens are symbiotic beings. That puts you are ahead of the great botanist Carl Linnaeus, who considered them “poor peasants of the plant world”. Wrong, Carl! But of course that was nearly three centuries ago. We've since figured out that lichens are not plants but rather composite organisms—a fungus and an alga or a cyanobacterium living tightly integrated lives. See Wikipedia's very interesting lichen page about their ecology, how they grow, their long evolutionary history, and the problems they cause when we try to classify them :) For a more philosophical view, try Lichens and the Meaning of Life.

The lichen that is so common in the eastern part of the Laramie Basin is ...  (fanfare) ... Tumbleweed Lichen! That is sooooo perfect for our windy world. Tumbleweed Lichen is a vagrant lichen, also an apt name. Instead of attaching to a substrate—rock, log, fence, etc.—it hugs the ground until wind sends it traveling again.

Our Tumbleweed Lichen is probably Xanthoparmelia camtschadalis or maybe X. chlorochroa. Seven Xanthoparmelia species occur in Wyoming and they're hard to tell apart. X. camtschadalis is common east of the continental divide, which is where Laramie is located.

The junipers I'm following grow in dry sagebrush grassland on thin rocky soil developed on limestone (at or not far below the surface)—harsh conditions, but Tumbleweed Lichen obviously does well here. Coverage ranges from small patches here and there to extensive ground cover, especially on the windward side of sagebrush, grass, and other plants.

Note penny on right, for scale.

Pale green patches at base of plants (lower right to mid left) are lichens whose tumbling was stopped by sagebrush and grass.

Tumbleweed Lichen and Pricklypear Cactus.

In some places, Tumbleweed Lichen dominates the ground cover.

Last month I predicted Easter Daisies (Townsendia) would be blooming now, but I was wrong. The daisies know better. In fact, we woke up to snow this morning.

Easter Daisies wisely waiting for spring.

Sources

Thanks to Judy vA for the articles included here. She met these vagrant lichens in her yard when she lived in Laramie. Thanks also to Jozien and Lysandra for id advice via iNaturalist.

Perry, Tyrell. 2018 (Winter). "What are Lichens?"  Barnyards and Backyards. U. Wyoming, College of Agriculture. PDF

Popova, Maria. 2023 (Mar 25) Lichens and the Meaning of Life. The Marginalian.

Tree Following: new tree(s) for 2023

Arrow points to our destination—a Rocky Mountain Juniper

Every year about this time, we tree followers are out searching for a new tree. Unfamiliar with tree following? This is how I explained it in 2014, the year I joined the group, when I followed a cottonwood not far from my house:

"The idea is not to chase a tree around, obviously that’s not necessary, but rather to visit a specific tree occasionally to see what’s going on in its life—as an 'interested neighbor' as Lucy [Corrander] says."

Since then I've followed a willow, boxelder, limber pine, juneberry, hawthorne, chokecherry, maple, balsam poplar, and even an extinct palm tree (that didn't work out so well). After all these years and trees, I'm still at it. Seems I always learn something, often something interesting or unexpected.

I've learned that for me it's best to choose a tree that's easily accessible, and even better, in a place I enjoy. Deciduous trees are preferable to evergreens (= conifers here) because they change more through the year. But it's getting hard to come up with a new species. Laramie, Wyoming is 7200 feet above sea level, semi-arid (12" annual precipitation), and far from any moderating coastal influence. Tree diversity is limited.

Foothills of Laramie Mountains on horizon.

I've decided to follow a juniper (Juniperus scopulorum), or as Wyoming folks say, a cedar (which it's not). This juniper is on public land just east of town, where three nice new hiking trails were added recently. Thus the tree will be accessible year round, though requiring some trudging in winter.

But which is the 1 less traveled?

To reach the juniper, we left Trail 1 and traveled cross-country—quite easy on the slabby limestone, even with snow.

Shrub-like limber pine, Pinus flexilis.

We've arrived.

There was an 'archeological site' at the base of the tree on the east side, where it was protected from the wind.

Obviously I didn't follow all my tree-selection rules; junipers are evergreen. And this one probably grows only a tiny bit each year given the habitat (rock). If I were to visit only the tree, there wouldn't be much to report each month. But I think its neighborhood will make up for that. What looks like nothing but bare rock is actually acceptable habitat for the right plants. Small tough xerophytic perennials somehow established themselves and now thrive in crevices, cavities, little patches of gravel, etc. When the days warm, these limestone slabs will become rock gardens, with spots of color scattered about (fingers crossed for decent rains this year).

Hints of things to come:

Wild buckwheat. Cushion growth form is common here.

Blue grama is one of the dominant grasses where there's some soil.

Prickly pear, Opuntia polyacantha. How do succulents survive the arctic air that visits us in winter?

In checking the tree from various sides, I discovered it was a pair! No need to choose—I will follow both.

My new friends in the golden light before sunset.

Blue grama and junegrass backlit by the low sun.

This is my monthly contribution to the virtual gathering of tree followers kindly hosted by The Squirrelbasket. Want to join in the fun? It's easy and no there's no pressure :) More information here. And click on the Linky box for the latest news.