Field of Sunflowers © 2012 Bo Mackison
In summer, the song sings itself. ~ William Carlos William
Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is taking an August break from writing long blog posts, but the photos continue. So many lovely flowers!
Yucca candelabra © 2012 Bo Mackison
Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grasses, brooks . . . We learned to do what only the students of nature ever learn, and that was to feel beauty. ~ Luther Standing Bear
Yuccas are a common plant in the United States Southwest, so common that it is the state flower of New Mexico.
The leaves of the Yucca are long, narrow, and come to a sharp point. (I have proof – deep scratches on my arms. When will I learn!!)
Fibers of the yucca can be used to make rope and loosely woven textiles. The thick root can be beaten into a lathery pulp which is then used for soap and shampoo. It was a plant that was frequently planted near homesteads and encampments for its usefulness.
When the yucca blossoms, creamy-colored, bell shaped flowers hang in loosely arranged clusters. If the flowers are pollinated, seed-filled capsules develop. The yucca then dies after flowering and fruiting, but produces offshoots that spread out from the mother plant and develop into new plants.
The yuccas only known pollinator is the yucca moth. The female yucca moth has a specialized mouth to collect the pollen. She lays her eggs in the yucca flower and covers the eggs with a ball of pollen. The pollen fertilizes the seeds which then begin to develop. The moth’s larvae require the yucca seeds for growth and development. Both species, the yucca and the yucca moth, benefit from the exchange. This inter-dependence on each other for survival is termed mutualism.
It is quite a lovely thing, to walk or drive down nearly any street and see the yucca blossoms swinging high in the air, atop the yucca stalk.
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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. She is happy to see so many plants in bloom.
Spanish Bayonet in Bloom © 2012 Bo Mackison
The Spanish Bayonet has many common names, plus an out of date genus name and a corrected genus name. One look at this eye catching plant, and it is understandable why it has attracted much attention (and many names, too.)
The name that seems the most fitting is that of Spanish Bayonet. While the literature reports the sharp tipped leaves as “dangerously rigid” and states it was named after a bayonet because of its dagger like tendencies, I cannot help but think that the lovely red tips also influenced this name. As I have been (unintentionally) stabbed by one of these daggers, and as this unfortunate contact drew blood from my arm faster than a needle, I associate the Spanish Bayonet with blood letting tendencies.
And It Grows © 2012 Bo Mackison
This used-to-be yucca, now a hesperoyucca, still bears names from its misidentified yucca past — chapparal yucca ( yucca growing in a chapparal habitat) and foothill yucca (obviously named) and it is even called the common yucca, though it is no such thing. (Though “common hesperoyucca” is rather a mouthful.) The Spanish Bayonet was only found to be a misidentified plant through DNA testing, so one can hardly fault any of the yucca names. It is similar to a yucca in looks, but only distantly related.
Blooming Ten Feet High! © 2012 Bo Mackison
This plant and its relatives, the agaves and yuccas, are some of the most conspicuous plants in the arid Southwest, not only because its plant form is highly attractive and frequently used in xeriscaping, but also because its flower (or inflorescence – what the flowering stalk is called) is hard to miss.I find them attractive nuisances, because when I see them flowering along the highways, I want to either look — a definite no-no — or stop and take photographs.
The Spanish Bayonet blooms only once, after it spends its lifetime accumulating enough sugars and starches to provide the fuel for the rapid development of its shooting floral stalk. This type of plant is called a monocarpic — it spends its life energy to produce one huge floral stalk which then sets a huge quantity of seeds. The plant’s cause of death is most commonly ‘setting flower’.
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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. She cannot resist the occasional botany lecture interspersed with relevant photographs.
