When hiking in the canyons of Arizona's sky islands (e.g., Santa Catalina Mtns., Ajo Mtns.) where oaks, junipers, cypresses, and pinyon pines interface with saguaros, organ pipe cacti, and other desert vegetation, it's fun to speculate on the age of some of these trees. In these canyon crevasses where desert vegetation dominates the sunny canyon walls and higher-elevation plants dominate the shady walls and canyon bottoms, many of the trees are gigantic (by AZ standards) and ancient. On the bulb front, Hesperocallis undulata is sprouting all over the vacant lots and sandy expanses around my Yuma neighborhood. I see quite a few seedlings, although I've never seen any seedpods survive to maturity the depredations of the local rodents. Based upon my observations since 2004, the key to triggering its growth appears to be significant late summer monsoons (late August this year) followed in short order by significant early cool season rains (late November this year). We will probably need more rain to spur them to bloom in any significant number. I've seen a number of winters where they all sprout, but only solitary, well-scattered individuals bloom. Shawn Pollard Yuma, AZ -------------------------------------------- On Thu, 12/26/13, Hannon <othonna@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: Re: [pbs] Onward through the fog! - More Drivel and Trivia :-) To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Date: Thursday, December 26, 2013, 6:09 PM Even more OT: Vandeventer and others have provided insights into vegetation of the past utilizing packrat middens. They have demonstrated that in the place of the Sonoran Desert flora around Tucson now there was pinyon-juniper woodland. This was only about 8000 years ago. http://sbsc.wr.usgs.gov/cprs/research/… Dylan Hannon _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/