Urban ecosystems are cosmopolitan, blending plants and animals, as well as people, from all over the world. In Central Arizona, there is a distinct African influence, especially in the wildly diverse succulent plants that are supremely adapted to hot, arid climates similar to the Sonoran Desert.
Many species have become naturalized in arid regions around the world wherever there are human settlements. In addition to fleshy leaves and stems, most succulent plants have thick waxy skin and specialized metabolism, traits that increase their ability to conserve water.
Aloe (Aloe vera) has become an element of almost every American household because of its use in cosmetics, skin treatments, herbal medicine and food products, as well as for landscaping and for ornamental houseplants. There are over 500 species of Aloe, ranging from small rosettes to giant trees, all native to Africa and the Middle East. (Agaves, which are native to arid lands in the Western hemisphere resemble aloes in form, so are sometimes called "American Aloe," but are not closely related.) The thick leaves of Aloe vera are filled with slimy gel that is extracted and marketed for everything from laxatives to sunburn treatments.
Aloe Vera Plant
SAN PEDRO! Desert Rose, Hoya, Cactus, Snake Plant, Euphorbia, Aloe, and Agave!
The Intriguing Moroccan Mound (Euphorbia resinifera)
Moroccan Mound (Euphorbia resinifera) is one of hundreds of Euphorbias that have been imported from Africa for landscaping. Euphorbia is one of the most diverse plant genera in the world, with nearly 2000 species, including poinsettias and leafy spurge. Many African species of Euphorbia have spines as well as succulent stems, making them resemble cacti, which are indigenous to the Western hemisphere; this is a classic example of convergent evolution.
Read also: The Allure of Blue and White Tile
If you look closely at the tiny flowers of Euphorbias like Moroccan Mound, you will see that they are completely different from showy cactus flowers. Most Euphorbias also have thick white sap, or latex; cacti do not.
The sap of Moroccan Mound is called resiniferatoxin, and is renowned for being rated at 16 billion Scoville heat units, which is one thousand times hotter than pure capsicum, the spicy ingredient of chili peppers. Handle with care!
Moroccan Mound (Euphorbia resinifera)
Other Notable Plants
Pencil Tree (Euphorbia tirucalli), also known as Firesticks because of the flaming red stem tips, is super easy to grow and can flourish into a large tree with little to no irrigation. Like most other members of the Euphorbia family, it oozes milky sap when a branch is broken or cut. (Natural rubber is made from the latex of another member of this plant family that is native to Brazil, Hevea brasiliensis.)
Some have dubbed this plant a "miracle tree," claiming that the sap can be used to treat a broad suite of ailments ranging from warts to scorpion stings. However, beware! Many people suffer painful skin rashes and eye irritation when exposed to the sap or even just vapors from the plant.
Read also: Morocco's Blue Pearl
Elephant Bush (Portulacaria afra) was imported from South Africa, where wild populations of this evergreen succulent shrub are an important food source for elephants, as well as other wildlife, including tortoises. In Africa, they call it "spekboom." The cut stems of Elephant Bush easily regenerate into new plants, a characteristic that may have evolved as a symbiotic relationship with elephants, since they scatter plant fragments as they feed.
There is some speculation by scientists that growing Elephant Bush on a large scale may be useful to store carbon dioxide in order to reduce atmospheric levels of the gas that contributes to global climate change.
Skunk Creek: A Lifeline in the Desert
If you want to truly understand the Sonoran Desert, you need to walk the dry creeks and washes before and after a flash flood. A thin dotted-and-dashed blue line on the map, Skunk Creek is a seasonal stream that stretches about thirty miles from its headwaters on New River Mesa northeast of Anthem, to its confluence with New River just south of Bell Road and west of Highway 101.
In the wilder sections, Skunk Creek is a quiet, sandy wash more than 360 days a year, where a person can walk up the middle following tracks of coyotes, black-tailed jackrabbits, lizards and roadrunners. The creek bed runs roughly parallel with and between two other large washes, New River and Cave Creek, cutting a diagonal swath through dense suburbs.
Map of Phoenix Creeks and Rivers
Read also: Men's Moroccan Fashion
For thousands of years, Skunk Creek served as a travel corridor not only for wildlife, but also for ancient people migrating between the high country north of Phoenix and the Gila River in the south Central Valley. Today, we can still find signs of small settlements along the way, where people farmed maize, cotton and squash. Fragments of clay pots and stone tools are scattered around foundations of pit houses.
Much of Skunk Creek is still as wild and free as it was just half a century ago when the north valley began to be developed. You can still walk the wash from its headwaters all the way to Carefree Highway. From there it begins to be tunneled under roads and channelized in order to control flooding that would normally spread for miles beyond the natural stream channel.
In the heart of North Phoenix there is a paved recreation path, dubbed "Skunk Creek Linear Park," that winds above the wash for about four miles between 51st Avenue & Utopia down to 73rd Avenue & Greenway. The path connects with a network of city trails that follow other washes and canals.
Geological Survey water gauge records show that on August 1st, 1964, Skunk Creek spiked to 11,500 cfs (cubic feet per second). This record high was trumped a couple of months ago on August 19th, when monsoon storms dumped nearly four inches of rain in the headwaters, causing Skunk Creek to surge over 13,000 cfs and jump its banks to flow down the I-17. That's about the same flow going through the Grand Canyon most days of the year.
Imagine a small house (~1300 square feet) full of water flowing by every second. There was plenty of news coverage of that event and rescues that ensued when morning commuters encountered the deluge. But the real news is the life that thrives when the water recedes. Toads emerge and lay eggs. Seeds that may have been waiting for decades to be scoured and soaked, germinate. Shrubs and trees grow lush crops of new leaves. Flowers bloom. Insects hatch. Birds and rodents feast, and so do coyotes and bobcats. Life that has evolved here is well adapted to these torrential events, resilient to what may seem tragic to humans.
Skunk Creek is a tributary within the Middle Gila Watershed, just east of New River. About three miles downstream from the confluence with New River in Glendale, water from Skunk Creek mingles with Agua Fria, which runs for a few more miles before it joins the Gila River. This area is known as Tres Rios (Three Rivers), because Agua Fria and Rio Salado combine to become the Gila River.
Javelinas: Suburban Desert Dwellers
The signs are everywhere if you know what to look for: seedy piles of scat; hoof prints in the dust; large bites taken out of cactus pads; shallow depressions in the shade of mesquite trees and the occasional tuft of coarse dark gray hair. If you have a good nose, you might smell their peculiar musky scent.
Collared peccaries, better known as javelinas, are frequent visitors to many suburban neighborhoods in Arizona. Stetson Hills resident, Jennifer Moore, was once woken at 2:00 am by the sound of snorting and huffing outside her open window. When she looked out to see what was going on, there was a herd of eight javelinas trotting single file down the sidewalk. Another neighbor regularly sees them very early in the morning outside their view fence as the animals make their way to daytime shelters under nearby palo verde trees.
Suburban habitats around Phoenix provide a smorgasbord of some of the javelina's favorite foods, including jojoba nuts, acorns, cactus fruit and pads, mesquite pods, agave, plus flowers, fruit and bulbs. Like their distant cousins, wild boars and pigs, javelinas are opportunists, so will happily eat your garden tomatoes, squash, birdseed or a bowl of dog food.
By night they may be munching in your yard, but during the day they will retreat up washes into the desert where they can rest unseen until the sun goes down. They are named for their small spear-like, or javelin-shaped, tusks that grow from the upper jaw of both sows and boars. Also recognized by their peculiar flattened heads and long "collar" of bristly white hair, javelinas are reputed to have very poor eyesight, but keen senses of smell and hearing.
They are common throughout the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, all of Mexico and Central America and down into Argentina where they also inhabit tropical rain forests. In fact, paleontological research suggests that javelinas evolved in rain forests and have gradually extended their range to North American deserts. Archaeological evidence indicates that they did not inhabit northern and central Arizona until the late 1600's.
Javelinas are one of the few large wild mammals that breed year round, so it is not unusual to see pairs of tiny, red-haired piglets scampering to keep up with the rest of the family. About the size of a cottontail rabbit, the one-pound piglets are ready to run within a few days of being born. Although the mortality rate for javelinas is over 50% within the first year, those who make it beyond their youth may wander the desert for up to a decade.
Humans, coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions are their main predators. Although javelinas are generally gentle animals, they do have a reputation for being aggressive defenders of their young. As with most wildlife, javelinas are more threatened by humans than the other way around.
Blackbirds in the Urban Landscape
"Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie" is one of the more memorable lines in nursery rhymes passed on from eighteenth century England. In Europe, where this poem originated, one of the most common "blackbirds" is the starling, which was imported to North America in the 1890's as one of the menagerie of over sixty bird species mentioned in Shakespeare's writings. (The bard's play, Twelfth Night, is the oldest known source for the line "Sing a song o' six pence.")
On many spring mornings, you might see starlings grazing local lawns and parks along with flocks of several types of North American blackbirds, which include cowbirds, grackles, Brewer's blackbirds, as well as the more colorful yellow-headed and red-winged blackbirds. In the official blackbird family, Icteridae, males and females are often mistaken for completely different species because they look so different.
Females' feathers are designed for camouflage, dressed in drab brown rather than black. Showy males are up to 60% larger than females and wear sleek black feathers with sheens of blue, green and purple. Blackbirds tend to thrive in the company of humans in both agricultural and urban settings, often in noisy flocks of hundreds, thousands or even millions.
The most elegant of this group are the male Great-tailed Grackles, with long fan-shaped tails, iridescent feathers and bright gold eyes. During their breeding season, the males perform ardent courtship displays featuring neck stretching, wing vibrations and tail fanning, accompanied by loud screeching and cackling. Some of this is competitive, so you'll sometimes see several males displaying at once as they vie for their rank in the local mating hierarchy.
Both males and females are promiscuous, meaning that they all have multiple partners, although there tends to be more available females than males in most colonies. In this species, the ladies take care of nest-building and chick-rearing on their own. However, it is not completely derogatory to be called a Zanate, for they are also known as great vocalists.
Popular articles:
tags: #Moroccan
