Monday, May 21, 2012
Flower, Lizard...
For us, however brown it looks to you, it has been a "wet" green spring. Didn't see a collared lizard last year but saw TWO on the ruin in an hour. The cooperative one was basking on the Yawheh graffiti rock:
Any botanizers out there who can ID this flower? It is not a common spring one here but we are lush in vegetation this year.
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We were remarking how green La Jencia was yesterday, and how absurd the claim would sound to anyone east of the 100th. But scoff as they might, there were areas of quite cromulent green out there. Sandoval County, where we watched the eclipse, was looking lush and flowery as well (though I'm no help on the ID for this one).
The lizard(Collared Lizards are so neat!) reminds me of a funny lizard observation I made the other day....I went to see the Zoo's new temporary dinosaur exhibit(where I work; and neat as they are, don't EVEN get me started on what I think about spending wads of money for fake animals when you can't get basic things done for the real animals! And yes, sadly as a reflection on our ignorant public, people HAVE already called in checking to see if our dinosaurs are "real"!...)and not only was a large REAL blacksnake coiled under the Dimetrodon, but a green Anole was perched on the head of a moving, animatronic bipedal saurian, displaying for all he was worth with his bright red dewlap! Considering what he was perched on, he must have been making a helluva impression on the nearby rival males!
...and while we're talking lizards, another funny observation(well, I think so...) Coming out of the employee bathroom at work awhile back, I was startled to have a HUGE Skink run over my foot--"Dang!" I said to my co-worker nearby, "That looked like a dang KOMODO DRAGON!" "No", replied my wonderfully corny co-worker, "since it came from the bathroom, that would be a COMMODE DRAGON!".....And has anyone seen the delightfully quirky send-up to film Westerns(and lizards and various other desert critters) "Rango"? I just did recently--what a hoot! Very clever and fun movie--but only if you love the "Spirit Of The West!"
Dunno about the flower but that's the northern New Mexico national plant the cholla
I knew that!
Blossom resembles Phlox ... Perhaps escaped from domestisticity?
A long way from town and widespread--?? Maybe a relative? I am far more zoologist than botanist.
The mystery flower is a wild mustard commonly called spectaclepod (when it sets seed the paired seeds look like spectacles). Dimorphocarpa wislizeni is the taxonomic binomial. Quite common even in fairly dry times, lightly fragrant. Wonderful native wildflower.
Thanks, Judith. It is here in profusion this (unusually wet) spring but I don't recall it as a spring flower before. Later in the season I might lose it in the diverse mix--??
I knew that!
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Sorry - couldn't help myself
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