Creekside flowers

All photos copyright Marty Horowitz 8/20/2016

Plants in the Evening Primrose family (Onagraceae) generally have flowers with four separate petals. Hooker Evening Primrose (Oenothera elata ssp. hirsutissima) flowers are a fine example.

These plants like a little extra water. You'll see them blooming creekside through the end of the year (usually).

Root Loose

Photo by Deb Langeloh 8/28/2016

No one likes to see a Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) in this position, but this one may have toppled because of the monsoon rains. Saguaros have shallow roots at all stages of their life cycle. Unlike many other tall-growing plants (like trees), saguaros have no tap root. Their roots do extend radially, about as far as the plant is tall, but the deepest main root is only about 2-feet under the soil. Their shallow roots allow saguaros to quickly and efficiently take in rain water, but the roots can't anchor the plant if it gets too heavy or if the ground becomes saturated and muddy.
Trying to re-root a fallen saguaro is almost always an exercise in futility, especially if the saguaro is more than a foot or two tall. The saguaro pictured above simply has too much mass; the broken roots wouldn't be able to sustain it. Unlike some other cactus, you can't grow a saguaro from a piece (say, an arm) that's broken off. Again, there's simply too much mass - and roots won't sprout from the piece, anyway.

Sabino Stewards are Superheroes

Photo and text copyright guest blogger and Chief Sabino Steward Mark Hengesbaugh

Anne says: You, too, can be a superhero like Paul Kriegshauser!
No tights necessary!

If you walked the canyon in August you may have seen Sabino Stewards busily trying to control the spread of invasive plants. The invasive problem is complex and long-standing, but I like to describe it simply: wherever these invasive plants take over, wildlife habitat is destroyed or significantly degraded. Many of you remember how the Sabino Giant Reed (Arundo donax) thickets surrounded and killed native plants and trees. We all love Sabino for its butterflies, lizards, bobcats and birds so we need to protect the native plants that provide them food, shelter and nesting areas.

But enough preaching to the Sabino choir. When you see us volunteers in the canyon with backpack sprayers, we are spot-treating five perennial invasive grasses that are impossible to dig out effectively. They are buffelgrass, fountain grass, natal grass, Johnson grass and Giant Reed. Spot-treating means we go into every nook and cranny along the creek and roadside and when we find a target invasive, we direct a light spray of herbicide, marked with blue dye, on it. We use a 5 percent solution of the lowest-risk category herbicide. It is not toxic to humans or wildlife and is fully absorbed into the plant within 20 minutes. After all the spraying is completed, the total amount of active ingredient used is only ounces per acre. Because the herbicide is not persistent on dormant invasive plants, we have only brief windows of time—like monsoon green-up—during which we can treat the plants. So far in August, our team—Janis Findlay, Wayne Klement, Jim Klinger, Phil Bentley, Steven Boley and myself—in four sessions totaling 74.5 hours, have treated these invasives from Tram Stop 9 downstream to Bear Bridge, both on the creekside and on the roadside.

If you would like to help, either with manual removal such as our upcoming Public Lands Day Event Sept. 24, or with the herbicide application, email me at sabinostewards (at) gmail (dot) com. Read more about Sabino Canyon conservation efforts at http://www.sabinonaturalists.org/conservation/. A related note, there will also be USFS contractors in the canyon in the near future treating the higher, steeper canyon walls for buffelgrass.

Mark Hengesbaugh, Sabino Stewards

It's Four O'Clock time!

Photo by Marty Horowitz 8/20/2016

Red Spiderling (Boerhavia coccinea)

A number of plants in the Four O'Clock Family (Nyctaginaceae) are monsoon bloomers, including the one above. Also blooming now in Sabino Canyon are Trailing Four O'Clock (Allionia incarnata), Erect Spiderling (Boerhavia erecta), and Bush Spiderling (Commicarpus scandens).

Barrels o' Flowers

More Arizona Barrel Cactus (Ferocactus wislizenii) in bloom! All photos copyright Marty Horowitz 8/20/2016.

In this last photo, you can see various stages. Some buds haven't opened yet; some flowers are fully open, and some are developing fruits. You'll note the dried looking stuff at the top of the pineapple-looking green things. The dried part is the spent flower (already finished its job of attracting a pollinator); the green part is the developing fruit. The fruits are yellow when ripe and are edible, albeit a bit tart.

Lone Gall

Photo by Marty Horowitz 8/20/2016

Gall on Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata)

Next time you see a Creosote Bush, take a closer look and check for galls. (Yes, I've blogged about this before; see this post.) Once you know to look for them, you'll see them all over! Basically, galls are the plant's response to insect invasion.

Tiny toads on the roads

All photos by Marty Horowitz 8/20/2016

If you've been out and about in Sabino recently, you've noticed many tiny toads hopping along. These are the offspring of the recent pairings of Red-spotted Toads. (But there are likely other tiny toads on the move.)