The calm before the monsoons…..

Howdy gang!

It has been a busy few weeks here in southern New Mexico. Although it has been uncharacteristically wet this year, this is the Chihuahuan Desert. It’s still hot and still dry. We are still waiting for the climax of collectable plant populations to hit. So far, we’ve made a collection of Thymophylla acerosa, commonly called prickly Leaf Dogweed. Fortunately for us collectors, it really isn’t all that prickly. It does, however, have a wonderfully pleasant odor that reminds me a bit of turpentine. Secondly, we made a collection of Aristida purpurea var. longiseta which is simply a really long awned version of Purple Threeawn grass. And finally, we made a collection of Plantago patagonica (Woolly Plantain). Beyond that, our task as far as seed collections has been to find, monitor, and predict optimal timing for collections. In this respect, we have pretty well determined when and where we will be making our collections. Many of these will be mature enough for collection within the next three weeks or so.

Jeanne and I have also been doing some monitoring of Peniocereus greggii var. greggii (PEGRG), one of a handful of rare plants of concern to the BLM in this area. Very little is known about the plant, which is a problem given that the BLM here in New Mexico enacts a policy of herbiciding large swaths of land to herbicide the shrubbery with the hoped effect of increasing carrying capacity of grass forage; which, of course, make the cows happy; which makes the ranchers happy. That’s the logic anyway. However, this may be problematic for PEGRG, because it likes to live in nurse shrubs. So we are studying the effects of how dead nurseplants or reduced canopy affect the survival of these odd but cute little cacti. As if all this weren’t enough, occasionally the field office sends us out to perform veg surveys for salvageable plants wherever construction projects are impending, such as power line or road widening projects. I enjoy these tasks because we get to save plants from annihilation. The salvaged plants get sent to the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Preserve or some other responsible party that will give them a new and loving home.

Over the course of our adventures, the three of us have gotten the chance to see some extremely remote and extremely cool areas. Of these, so far, my favorite is the Florida Mountains. These mountains are not all that accessible that I know of and are located very near to the Mexican border. Ecologically, the area is fascinating because they are intermediate between Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts in terms of plant species present. My mentor always takes a moment to play with any random herps we come upon. I will look, but I do not touch! Anyway. happy trails fellow CLMers! May the force save us from getting the truck stuck!……again.

Best wishes,

Dave M.

Las Cruces District Office of the BLM