Duff

Weather: Afternoon temperatures are still climbing into the 90s. The Forest Service found another small fire it could escalate into a major one with aerial ignitions. This one was in Valles caldera. For three days now I’ve been suffering from the effects of the polluted smoke.

Last useful rain: 8/11. Week’s low: 47 degrees F. Week’s high: 93 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red-tipped yuccas, Russian sage, buddleia, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, datura, coreopsis, cultivated sunflowers

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, silver leaf nightshade, alfalfa, white sweet clover, leather leaf globe mallow, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, toothed spurge, prostrate knotweed, pigweed, Russian thistle, Hopi tea, native sunflowers, gumweed, wild lettuce, horseweed, goldenrod, golden hairy asters, quack grass, seven-weeks, side oats and black gramas.

Áñil del muerto has been blooming much of the summer in fallow market garden fields. It has only now begun to bloom along the roadside.

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, garlic chives, Royal Standard hosta, catmints, calamintha, winecup mallow, sidalcea, white spurge, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Mexican hats, African marigolds, chrysanthemums, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, purple coneflower, Mönch asters, bachelor buttons

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, sweet alyssum, nicotiana, snapdragons

What’s Coming Up: Early summer seedlings have not grown; some are still at their second leaves. The ones that did come up have to be watered every day when the temperatures return to July highs. This is now September.

Tasks: With the moisture in early August, hay and other grasses revived. This past week people have been mowing.

Insects and fungus are taking advantage of the disappearing moisture and heat: powdery mildew has appeared on the Dr. Huey roses, and leaves on the peaches and cherries are getting disfigured. When I treated them with the available sprays nothing happened. I’m sure the base chemicals work, but I’m not sure the products do.

One thing I noticed this year was it was difficult to even find insecticides in the plant stores and local hardwares. This week I finally went to one of the big boxes to get something I hope works. I don’t know whether the chains or the manufacturers have instituted exclusive contracts, but I do know it seems as if they have.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, hummingbird, geckos, bumble and small bees, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

The Flame red grapes have been ripening for the past two weeks. I was able to eat a few each day. Saturday morning they were gone; not even a stem was left. I assume the rabbit leapt up, bit the cluster stems, then ate the fruit. It tries the fallen peaches, but only eats a little.

Weekly update: Earlier this summer, I cleaned leaves and dead shrubs from under the cottonwood. Recently, I’ve been doing the same under the Russian olive and some sandcherries. The tasks were similar, but the execution was not.

In each case, I first have to cut low dead branches to create a clearance. I was helped with the cottonwood by having someone cut some of the biggest limbs this past winter. All I had to do was cut smaller branches and winterfat.

The Russian olive was a different problem. The winter of 2013-2014 was particularly severe. Wikipedia said a polar vortex broke down in November, "which allowed very cold air to travel down into the United States, leading to an extended period of very cold temperatures. The pattern continued mostly uninterrupted throughout the winter." [1]

I wasn’t keeping detailed weather notes then, so don’t know exactly what happened. I did post an entry on 11 May 2014 on the consequences. Russian olives are not Siberian, but from a more temperate, moisture climate. [2] Trees everywhere in this area died back.

Once I cut or broke off the biggest branches, I had to defang the tree. It produces sharp, hard, wooden thorns. They aren’t poisonous, but pieces do produce infectiongs if they break off and get lodged under the skin. I didn’t always nip off the ones pointing up, but anything pointing down had to be removed.

It was after I had removed dead wood that I noticed the differences in the duff beneath the three species. Standard texts tell you that the duff is composed of three layers: the top strata of leaves and twigs, the bottom one of humus, and a middle one of organisms converting the one to the other. [3]

I know this basic model is valid. I remember seeing the various sorts of insects and worms that inhabit the middle world when I was in camp in Michigan. It was second growth hardwood, and I remember I would see them if I kicked over piles of oak leaves. But, of course, that was more sixty years ago, so I wouldn’t swear they were oaks.

That model does not appear here. As I mentioned in the post for 9 June 2019, the cottonwood leaves were fairly large and created a mat that stopped water from penetrating. It probably evaporated before it had time to seep down. [4] There was no humus, just bare dirt under the leaves.

Sandcherry leaves are smaller and seem to blow away. One is growing under a catalpa, and its leaves also move on. What falls to the ground are the dried shells of the seed pods. They create a web that allows water to go through. There were no signs of humus, but the soil had darkened from contact with decaying materials.

Russian olive leaves are small ovals that do drop. What I found under the tree was a caked layer of leaves and twigs, completely dried even though I watered the area every three days with a sprinkler hose. It had so much integrity, I could pick it up. It seemed like something that, given enough time and water, would turn into peat moss.

Under that layer, the ground was even darker than it was under sandcherry. Ironically, this hated invader seemed to be the only species capable of creating soil in this arid environment.

Notes on photographs:
1. Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia), 24 August 2019. You can see the dead branches at the base of the tree on the right. I have a limited ability to cut thick limbs. Often the loppers act pliers that twist and break what I can’t cut.

2. Russian olive thorns, 15 March 2014. They are aborted twigs.

3. Russian olive as it was recovering on 19 April 2014. All the low growth was dead, and it was putting out new stems from the trunk. All of that still has to be removed. I haven’t worked that far under the tree yet. I’m still removing pigweed from the periphery.

4. Cottonless cottonwood (Populus deltoides) duff, 30 August 2019. Different colors marked the different generations of leaves, with the grayer ones the older. You can see in the bare spot that there has been no creation of new soil. There’s a volunteer juniper growing with it.

5. Sandcherry (Prunus besseyi) duff, 24 August 2019. The bare shot shows this duff is sitting on the bare ground, without interacting with it. However, you can also see that debris allows water to penetrate.

6. Dried Russian olive duff, 30 August 2019, seen from the side.

7. Duff under the Russian olive after the caked layer has been removed.

End notes:
1. Wikipedia. "2013–14 North American Winter."

2. Kris Zouhar. "Elaeagnus angustifolia." United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service "Fire Effects Information System" website. 2005.

3. B. J. Stocks. Moisture in the Forest Floor - Its Distribution and Movement. Ottawa: Canadian Forestry Service, 1970. 1.

4. Stocks discussed the problem with evaporation from the duff.

Birds and Berries

Weather: Reached the days when afternoon rumbles of thunder don’t signify rain, but mark the time when temperature are falling from their noon peaks. Some rain early this morning.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid tea roses, bird of paradise, fernbush, buddleia, silver lace vine, trumpet creeper, datura, sweet pea, alfalfa, Russian sage, annual four o’clock from seed, hollyhock, bouncing Bess, purple garden phlox, red amaranth, squash, farmer’s single sunflowers, coreopsis, blanket flower, yellow yarrow, Shasta daisy, zinnias, brome grass, early corn tasseling.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trees of heaven, buffalo gourd, yellow mullein, goat’s head, white sweet clover, bindweed, green-leaf five-eyes, Queen Anne’s lace, Hopi tea, plains paper flower, horseweed, flea bane, gumweed, strap leaf, golden hairy and purple asters.

In my yard: Rugosa roses, yellow potentilla, Saint John’s wort, California poppy, snow-in-summer, coral beard tongue, lady bells, Goodness Grows veronica, catmints, blue flax, larkspur, winecup mallow, pink evening primrose, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, chocolate flower, bachelor button, white yarrow, purple coneflower, reseeded Sensation cosmos.

Bedding plants: Sweet alyssum, snapdragon, moss roses, marigold, gazania.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums.

Animal sightings: Hummingbird and other small birds, geckos, bumble bees, hornets, ants.

Weekly update: The French may be gourmets, but they don’t understand sandcherries.

In 1620, Pedro de Villasur led an expedition from Santa Fé along the Platte river into Nebraska that ended in an ambush. A single sheet from his log later was taken to the French fort north of modern Saint Louis then commanded by Pierre Dugué, sieur de Boisbriand. It apparently was translated into French and forwarded to Paris. Marc de Villiers published the version he found in the French archives of the war ministry in 1921. Sheldon Anderson published an English translation two years later.

The fragment begins when they are setting up camp. Villasur tells his men, "a savage had reported to him that he had found some leaves of fresh sand cherries which seemed to be the remains of a meal of some troop which had passed there lately."

Villiers published "des feuilles d'Oloues (?) fraiches," which literally means "leaves of Oloues fresh." I could find no on-line translation for the word Villiers couldn’t interpret.

Anderson noted, "any one familiar with the Platte Valley in the month of August knows that sand cherries are the most abundant fruit to be found and most likely to be the one eaten by this band of Indians."

Prunus pumila has several subspecies. Besseyi and pumila grow in Nebraska; susquehanae and depressa are found in Ontario and Québec. Joseph Rohrer calls it cerisier des sables.

It’s all about translation and experience. The western variety is advertised in nursery catalogs as attractive to birds, without specifying which varieties to expect. Bart Prose says the sharp-tailed grouse feed on the western besseyi in Nebraska. In Illinois, the Appalachian susquehanae is eaten by prairie chickens, wild turkeys, eastern bluebirds, northern cardinals, robins, and cedar waxwings, according to John Hilty.

Not all those are birds one wants to invite into one’s yard. Only robins migrate through this area. Waxwings summer in the north and winter in the southeast.

Local fruit-eating birds don’t always recognize alien berries. It’s about translation and experience.

Pyracantha coccinea is another vine marketed as a bird lure, again without details. But drive around in late winter and you will still see untouched orange berries. They are devoured by cedar waxwings in South Carolina and Florida. Trois says, "thousands of Robins show up at ours and eat every berry in an hour" on Christmas day in Santa Fe, Texas.

Waxwings also eat privet berries in northern California. In England, David Snow says Ligustrum vulgare are patronized by blackbirds, robins, blackcap and bullfinches. He adds waxwings have eaten them in Germany, starlings in Hungary, and robins, nuthatches and great tits near Dresden, also in Germany.

Local birds seem to prefer local species. As mentioned in the post for 14 March 2010, Townsend’s solitaire lives on one-seeded juniper berries. Since the thrush isn’t found around here, and Juniperus monosperma berries usually disappear by early winter, other birds must be eating them.

The exception is Virginia creeper. It isn’t native, but has naturalized everywhere, no doubt with the aid of birds. Mark Brand says eastern bluebirds, northern cardinals, chickadees, woodpeckers and turkeys eat the fruit from Parthenocissus quinquefolia. Of those, mountain chickadees are the most common in my yard.

At this time of the year, the berries are disguised by their green colors, which blend into their leaves. They don’t announce themselves until they are ripe. Even the black sandcherries are hard to see at a distance. But, after their leaves fall, all the fruit wares are highly visible.

The translation will be complete, but not all things will be intelligible.

Notes:
Brand, Mark. "Virginia Creeper" Fairfax County, Virginia, Public Schools website.

Dunn, Jon L. and Jonathan Alderfer. Complete Birds of North America, 2006, on cedar waxwing distribution.

Eleisia. "Cedar Waxwings Came and Went!," Chickadees, Juncos, and Jays Oh My! website, 2 February 2013

Hilton, Bill Jr. "This Week at Hilton Pond 1-7 January 2001," Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History website.

Hilty, John. "Susquehana Sand Cherry," Illinois Wildflowers website.

Prose, Bart L. Habitat Suitability Index Models: Plains Sharp-tailed Grouse, 1987.

Rohrer, Joseph R. "Prunus pumila Linnaeus," Flora of North America, available on-line.

Scheper, Jack. "Pyracantha coccinea," Floridata website, 13 October 2005 revision.

Snow, Barbara and David Snow. Birds and Berries, 2010.

Trois. Comments on "Scarlet Firethorn," 4 October 2004, Dave’s Garden website.

Villiers, Marc de. "Le Massacre de l'Expedition Espagnole du Missouri (11 Aoüt 1720)," Journal de la Société des Americanistes de Paris, 1921. Translated and annotated by Addison E. Sheldon for Nebraska History, January-March, 1923.

Photographs:
1. Western sandcherry, in my yard, 17 July 2015.
2. Western sandcherry, in my yard, 16 July 2015.
3. Pyracantha, in town, 16 July 2015.
4. Privet, in my yard, 17 July 2015.
5. One-seeded juniper, in my yard, 16 July 2015.
6. Virginia creeper, down the road, 17 July 2015.
7. Western sandcherry, in my yard, 17 July 2015.

South Carolina 3: John Champneys (Rose Grower)

When South Carolina congressmen became more vociferous about the supposedly false theories of modern science, I began to wonder how Charleston had ever produced the important innovations in botany that underlay its lifestyle: the selection of new types of rice and roses. Periodically, I’ll be publishing the result of my inquiries into the lives of two innovative growers, Hezekiah Maham (rice) and John Champneys (roses). Previous entries can be found under “South Carolina” in the index at the right

Weather: A bit warmer for a few days; last rain 11/10/12; 9:48 hours of daylight today.

What’s still green: Rose stems, juniper and other evergreens, red hot poker, yucca, Madonna lily, Japanese honeysuckle, Saint John’s wort, vinca, moss phlox, soapworts, sea pink, pink and yellow primroses, sweet pea, beardstongues, gypsum phacelia, pampas and needle grasses.

What’s red: Cholla; apple, apricot and sandbar willow branches.

What’s grey or blue: Snow-in-summer, pinks, Silver King artemisia leaves.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia, petunias.

Animal sightings: Small brown birds.

The berries eaten by native birds are disappearing; those of plants introduced from elsewhere are drying on the vine or branch, unrecognized as food.

Weekly update: The American Revolution was not kind to Hezekiah Maham or John Champneys, who were beyond the age of adventure when war was declared in 1776. One was 37, the other 33.

Champneys had a plantation on the banks of the Wando, between the Cooper and the Atlantic on the northeast side of Charles Town where seven to eight acres were devoted to “trees, plants, shrubs and flowers of every kind which can minister to use or ornament” and “nature is improved, but no where violated.”

All changed when he refused to sign the oath of loyalty in 1777. He was given one year to sell his land and leave. The next year, when the General Assembly demanded reaffirmation of the oath from neutrals, Champneys recalled the response of the banished supporters of Parliament during the English civil war in Barbados when he published “An account of the sufferings and persecution of John Champneys: a native of Charles-town, South-Carolina; inflicted by order of Congress, for his refusal to take up arms in defence of the arbitrary proceedings carried on by the rulers of said place. Together with his protest, &c.”

When the British took Charles Town in 1780, Champneys was among those who returned. The next year, the war time governor, John Rutledge, offered loyalists the opportunity to reclaim their citizenship if they served six months in the militia, but he explicitly excluded men, like Champneys, who had been banished before 1780. That same year, 1781, Champneys married Mary Harvey, the widow of William Wilson.

The fourth General Assembly met in exile in Jacksonborough in January, 1782, after the British had surrendered at Yorktown but before they had vacated Charles Town. Rutledge asked them to name the loyalists who were most noxious to the incipient state. After much wrangling, they were close to issuing a list in February when William Henry Harvey, Mary’s brother, requested the property of their brother Alexander be given to him, as the rightful heir, rather than confiscated.

Two days after Harvey’s petition, the General Assembly rejected any such diversion of loyalist property. Instead, the members agreed to defer sales of real property, but not slaves, until their next session in January 1783 to give loyalists time to appeal. Like the British before them, they wanted to work the slaves to pay their war debts.

When the assembly issued its final list of 238, it included Alexander Harvey, who had signed the official greeting welcoming Henry Clinton to Charleston, and his mother’s first cousin, Joseph Seabrook, who had accepted protection from the British.

In 1783, soon after the British withdrew, the General Assembly established the trial rights for loyalists and scheduled hearings where they could come with their supporters to show they weren’t a menace to the community.

Rebecca Brannon has suggested that many tried to establish they had helped the rebel cause by taking in orphans, secretly helping prisoners, or using their positions to soften the British treatment of their neighbors. One she mentions was Joseph Seabrook, who claimed he had been “prevailed upon by his neighbors to take a Militia Command under the British Government in order to prevent plundering.”

Charles Town artisans weren’t happy to see so many well-to-do loyalists petitioning for clemency when the Treaty of Paris, that would take effect September 3, upheld the right of those merchants to collect debts assumed during the occupation when the peace severed the economic ties with Britain that had sustained the pre-war economy.

The city was rocked by riots in July and incorporated as a separate entity, Charleston, with an intendant in August.

On March 26 of the following year, 1784, the General Assembly passed a general amnesty act that removed many from the original Confiscation List and placed them on the list of those to be taxed. Alexander Harvey was not removed, but Seabrook was.

Soon after, Charleston rioted again, and a secret group warned thirteen to leave or die. Twelve were merchants who had just been removed from the Confiscation List. The other was John Champneys.

There are no on-line reports of activities by Champneys that would have made him a continuing target. The most likely reason is that his wharf made him the creditor of many. We know he had a mortgage on fifteen stores and land owned by Richardson, Wyatt, and Richardson on the wharf. When the heirs sued one another in 1791, the judge, Henry William De Saussure, discovered Champneys had overbilled the partners, and owed them money.

Champneys apparently moved to Saint Augustine, where, in 1785, he sold his property to Francis Philip Fatio, a Swiss national, with the understanding he could buy it back after the confiscation deadline. The same year, his wife petitioned again on behalf of her brother, who she said was now in England being treated for insanity, and requested safe passage for John to return to request a trial. Neither was accepted.

The Wando plantation was advertized for sale in 1786.

Champneys remained in exile, and his wife petitioned again in 1787 for his safe return to settle his affairs and remove her and their family to England. This time, the General Assembly accepted the petition but did not act until 1789 when it finally lifted his banishment, but didn’t return his wharf.

Sometime, he bought his new plantation on the south side of the city where William Williamson had established “one of the most elaborate early gardens” with six acres of water and ten acres of “pleasure grounds.” Williamson had died in 1785, leaving his estate to his half sisters, one of whom, Elizabeth Grimké, was married to John Rutledge.

Why the 44-year-old Champneys was finally accepted is not clear. He may finally have found a sufficiently influential sponsor, the General Assembly may have found it no longer could refuse after it had accepted worse men like Henry Laurens’ brother-in-law, Elias Ball, or it may have realized the war crisis had dissipated when the worst offenders had left and several years passed without rioting.

Mary filed one final petition in 1790. Back when her brother was leaving, she had bought a slave nurse from him at an inflated price, and now needed to regularize the woman’s position. She claimed the mulatto had been afraid at the time of the man who wanted to purchase her and she had had to outbid him.

While the Champneys had been fighting to return to Charleston, new men had been moving there who introduced the spirit of voluntary organizations we associate with the young republic. Andrew Michaux, a botanist sent by the French, started a nursery on Goose Creek and helped organize the Agricultural Society of South Carolina in 1785. Physicians trained in Edinburgh and Philadelphia founded the Medical Society of South Carolina in 1789, while others built the Orphan House in 1790.

When Champneys returned, his name appears among these new men, not among the established planter elite. He was a commissioner of the Orphan House from 1792 and 1796. As treasurer of the agricultural society in 1797, he had trouble collecting dues, and Thomas Pickney sent him a pamphlet about new ways of cultivating rice when he was president in 1810.

The year he died, 1820, the 77-year-old man was listed as a subscriber to the history of the Episcopal church being written by Frederick Dalcho, a Mason who joined the medical society in 1801, and helped organize the botanical garden in 1805.

Champneys’ life was defined by his plantations, the one on the Wando when he was an active entrepreneur, the one to the southwest when he as a civic leader, and the time between, spent in the wilderness of north Florida.

What we know of those plantations, at least the latter, however, has been defined by his enemies. The man who attributed the gardens to Williamson was David Ramsey who had jailed in Saint Augustine by the British and later married Laurens’ daughter Martha.

Notes:
Brannon, Rebecca Nathan. Reconciling the Revolution: Resolving Conflict and Rebuilding Community in the Wake of Civil War in South Carolina, 1775-1780, 2007; includes references to William Henry Harvey, Alexander Harvey and Joseph Seabrook.

Cothran, James R. Gardens of Historic Charleston, 1995; includes Ramsay’s description of Champneys’ second plantation.

Dalcho, Frederick. An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South-Carolina, 1820.

De Saussure, Henry William. Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Chancery of the State of South-Carolina: From the Revolution to [June, 1817], 1817.

Richardson, Barnard. Will described on genealogy website by Amanda Herbert, 21 February 2001.

Rogers, George C. Charleston in the Age of the Pinckneys, 1980 second edition; provides information on oath and Champney return.

Trinkley, Michael and Debi Hacker. "A Context for the Study of Low Country Gardens" in Tranquil Hill Plantation: The Most Charming Inland Place, 2007; includes advertisement for Champneys’ first plantation, with description of garden.

Photographs:
1. Native juniper berries on prairie, 6 December 2012.

2. Juniper berries on prairie, 6 December 2012.

3. Quasi-native sand cherries, 5 December 2012.

4. Purple leaf sand cherry, 5 December 2012.

5. Non-native pyracantha berries in Española, 5 December 2012.

6. Non-native apples down the road, 5 December 2012.

7. Non-native privet berries, 5 December 2012.

8. Quasi-native Virginia creeper berries, 5 December 2012.

9. Virginia creeper berries, 5 December 2012.

10. Non-native grapes down the road, 5 December 2012.

11. Grapes, 5 December 2012.

12. Non-native Russian olives, 5 December 2012.

13. Russian olives, 5 December 2012.

14. Non-native fruit on unknown tree in Española, 5 December 2012; now believed to be a Callery Pear.

Western Sand Cherry

What’s blooming in the area: Apples, chokecherry, flowering quince, other pink and white trees, tulips, iris, tansy and purple mustards, hoary cress, alyssum simplex, western stickseed, mossy phlox, golden smoke, oxalis, fernleaf globemallow, dandelion, three-awn grass; buds on wisteria; people preparing their vegetable gardens.

What’s coming out: Some cottonwoods in green haze, silver lace vine, spiny lettuce.

What’s blooming in my yard: Bradford pear, Rome apple, sour cherry, purple-leaved plum, peach, purple-leaved and western sand cherries, forsythia, daffodil, grape hyacinth, hyacinth, baby blue iris, vinca, yellow alyssum; buds on spirea and lilacs.

What’s coming out: Dr. Huey rose, cherry leaves, beauty bush, snowball, privet, tamarix, hosta, sea lavender, pied snapdragon, purple ice plant, Hartweig’s primrose, purple coneflower, yarrows, Mönch aster.

What’s blooming inside: Aptenia.

Animal sightings: Small hummingbird, gecko, bees, small red and large black ants.

Weather: Storms moved through the area all week, but didn’t leave any rain until Thursday night; 13:31 hours of daylight today.

Weekly update: Fragrance is rare in my yard. The only times I smell flowers are early in the morning when the air is still damp. Then they are ones with powerful scents like sweet alyssum, chocolate flower, and hyacinth.

Some spring mornings I catch something that seems to be wafting up from the river, but I never can locate it. This year I realized the mystery plant had to be in my yard: when I walked out to the road, I could no longer smell it.

The only possibility is the clump of western sand cherries growing amongst the winterfat along the drive that have been blooming since the middle of the month. However, if I approach them there’s no sweet aroma. I can only detect it if I stand at a distance, and the wind’s blowing from the west.

The five-petaled flowers, dominated by fans of yellow-tipped stamens, never photograph well. No matter the time of day or weather conditions, my camera simply cannot see them. Last Saturday, I finally got one clear picture, and thought this is the moment. I stayed still, took another which was the usual blur. The third try was worse, a white blob.

I walked away thinking, it’s like those clusters knew I was there and deliberately sent out energy to blind my camera. Now, this is the kind of thought that comes to you, if you spend too much time around plants, but if you’ve been properly socialized, you know enough not to share it with others.

The Cheyenne used the same root word, muuh koo taa, for the red-branched shrub and for easily spooked game. They told George Grinnell, "if the scent of a human being reaches them," the taste of the dark-skinned fruits "is spoiled, hence they must always be picked from the leeward side."

The Dakota told Melvin Gilmore the half-inch cherries are sweet if you approach them against the wind, but are bitter and astringent if you move with the wind. Their name, aonyeyapi, carries the same meaning as the Cheyenne.

Kathleen Keeler wonders if the anomalous fleshy fruit surrounding an indigestible pit is some vestigial survival from the time before the glaciers when large mammals were the ones who disbursed seeds that need at least 120 days of cold, wet weather to germinate. Since they’re now extinct, we have no idea what odor or taste attracted them.

The sweet smelling flowers would normally suggest adaptions to attract bees, but last weekend the bees surrounded the peach and yesterday were on the Siberian pea. Smaller insects and a few stray bees were on the sand cherries. The identity of Pleistocene pollinators, when many bees had retreated to the tropics, is one of those lost plant-animal interactions that interest Keeler.

The members of the rose family may be too sensitive to the potential danger humans present. When settlers moved into Nebraska and South Dakota, men like Gilmore transplanted the better tasting shrubs to their gardens where they became larger and bore more fruit.

Tony Reznicek was intrigued by a patch of land near Holland Landing, Ontario, on the ancient Indian trail from modern Toronto to New Georgian Bay that was an island of prairie plants, including Prunus besseyi, surrounded by a modern forest.

He believes it might have survived from the warm period that followed the Wisconsin glacier some 7000 years ago when Lake Algonquin was receding to leave Lake Huron and groups still traveled its shores. He thinks the natives deliberately kept the area clear for camping, probably with fires.

My plants came from a nursery in glacier scraped northwestern Ohio in 2001, and have thrived despite the hostile New Mexico environment. They normally bear clusters of fruit in three years, but mine didn’t produce until 2007 and then disappeared before I could taste them. The roots have spread along the irrigation hose and produced new suckers that have reached 40", a good height for the greying trunks.

All our theories, mine, the Cheyenne and Dakota, Keller and Reznicek, are the kind that are hard to demonstrate to rational scientists who don’t ascribe malignant intent to plants. After Darwin, traits like variable taste are simply genes to be bred away and the past just that, past.

Notes:Bessey, Charles. "Some Wild Fruits Which Ought To Be Cultivated," Nebraska State Horticultural Society, Annual Report, 43:55-56:1912, on Gilmore.

Gilmore, Melvin Randolph. Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region, 1919.

Grinnell, George Bird. The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Ways of Life, 1928, reprinted by Bison Books, 1972.

Grisez, Ted J. "Prunus L. Cherry, Peach, and Plum," in USDA Forest Service, Seeds of Woody Plants in the United States, 1974, on germination requirements.

Keeler, Kathleen. "Influence of Past Interactions on the Prairie Today: A Hypothesis," Great Plains Research 10:107-125:2000.

Reznicek, A. A. "Association of Relict Prairie Flora with Indian Trials in Central Ontario,"
North American Prairie Conference, Proceedings, 1982.

Photograph: Western sand cherry in front of winterfat, 17 April 2010.