Best Petey Mesquitey Podcasts (2025)

1
Sandhill Cranes Call From a Borderlands' Sky 4:11

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16h ago4:11

4:11

Out in the borderlands near me I find mariola (Parthenium incanum) on the gravelly slopes and plains of the Desert Grassland and Chihuahuan Desert. I love finding it mixed in with so other desert plant species. In the photos below you can see evidence of that kind of fun mixture…a plant geek’s delight! Hey, if you’re out cruising the Sulphur Spring…

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Cowpen Daisy 4:23

8d ago4:23

4:23

The photos are mine of Verbesina encelioides. Although it’s quite pretty, “a common weed of roadsides and waste places.”* *Kearney and Peebles, Arizona FloraBy Petey Mesquitey

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Ageratina herbacea 4:06

15d ago4:06

4:06

This episode is about a fall blooming plant called Ageratina herbacea. Ageratina means a small or smaller Ageratum… another beautiful blooming plant….herbacea means herbaceous. Duh. It’s probably just me, but I think ageratina makes for a nice common name. How about fragrant ageratina? Oh yeah. The photos are mine.…

1
Heuchera sanguinea 4:16

22d ago4:16

4:16

I was looking though some old notes of episodes and realized that I have talked about coral bells (Heuchera sanguinea) many times over the years. Like a favorite trail or dirt road I keep coming back to it. There are six species of Heuchera found in Arizona and they’re among the 40 to 50 species found in North America, not to mention numerous culti…

1
Jackass Clover and Clammy Weed 4:01

29d ago4:01

4:01

Both jackass clover (Wislizenia refracta) and clammy weed (Polanisia dodecandra) are in the Cleome family Cleomaceae, having left the caper family Capparaceae due to DNA analysis. A crime is solved! But listen, many of the plants in Cleomaceae can be quite aromatic or foetid smelling. Both jackass clover and clammy weed live up to that description …

1
Hummingbird Trumpet 4:22

1M ago4:22

4:22

Hummingbird trumpet (Epilobium canum) is a favorite late summer and fall wildflower in the wild or in a nursery. Well, in the wild is wonderful, but then get one for your personal habitat to remind you of the wild one you saw. The photos are mine.By Petey Mesquitey

1
Autumnal Acorns 4:22

1M ago4:22

4:22

Though I didn’t talk about it in this episode, some of the great things about gathering acorns out in habitat are the encounters with wild creatures. Ms. Mesquitey and I have some great oak and wildlife stories that include, bears, deer, turkeys, javelinas, porcupines, jays, pigeons, woodpeckers, caterpillars. Hang out by an oak and you will be sur…

1
Borderlands Mulberry 4:09

2M ago4:09

4:09

I walk by a native mulberry every day when I go to my office, the Books and Bones Retreat. I planted that Morus microphylla years ago and actually grew it from seed we had collected. That may be the subliminal reason I felt the need to talk about mulberry trees in this episode. I don’t think I did all the mulberry species justice and I will no doub…

1
America's Onion 4:25

2M ago4:25

4:25

The genus Allium has had quite a taxonomic journey and is at this time (stay tuned!) in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, where it had once been, so welcome back Allium. There are over 400 species of Allium native to the Northern Hemisphere. Arizona has 13 of those and nodding onion, Allium cernuum is one of them. Yay! Oh, And I know, I know, i…

1
Lunch in an Open Shady Forest 4:16

2M ago4:16

4:16

I like this paragraph from The Vascular Plants of the Gila Wilderness: “Psacalium decompositum is a distinctive plant that apparently reaches its most northern distribution here in New Mexico and Arizona. The mainly basal leaves are highly dissected with linear ultimate segments, and are quite large. The inflorescence is scapose and two to three fe…

1
Flora, Fauna, Friends and Butterfly Weed 4:27

2M ago4:27

4:27

Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) makes up for its lack of milky sap with the copious amount of nectar found in the flowers. Stand back and let the pollinators in! The photos are mine of the “clusters of golden yellow flowers” and taken on the day described in this episode.By Petey Mesquitey

1
Shrine for the Desert Box Turtle 4:18

3M ago4:18

4:18

The better common name for Terrapene ornata luteola is the ornate box turtle. The name desert box turtle is old like me….not Miocene old…maybe early Holocene. Hey, I recently read some nice essays about shrines in the borderlands written by the Tucson desert rat and artist Linda Victoria. Below is a link to her writing. https://substack.com/@lacoru…

1
Fallugia in a Book 4:18

3M ago4:18

4:18

Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa) is common around our little homestead and beyond. There are even thickets of it all along the banks of the Ol’ Guajolote. It tends to spread by roots to create those thickets and they bind the soil along the creek. Oh, and when this native shrub is in bloom and plume, it’s gorgeous. The photos are mine.…

1
Mountain Nine Bark 4:07

3M ago4:07

4:07

I meant to talk a little more about the leaves of Physocarpus monogynus. I did say that they resemble the leaves of a currant or a raspberry…they have a toothy or crenate margin, but not only are they are crenate, they are doubly crenate. The teeth have teeth. So when you find this beautiful shrub in a coniferous forest you can say to anyone who wi…

1
A Petey Reminiscence 4:24

3M ago4:24

4:24

By Petey Mesquitey

1
Sonoran Desert Milipede 4:03

4M ago4:03

4:03

This poem was originally written as part of the 2012 poetic inventory of the Saguaro National Monument East. Writers, poets and at least one radio personality drew a species name from a hat and were asked to submit a poem. This was my contribution. The photos are mine.By Petey Mesquitey

1
Snoozing Squash Bees 4:22

4M ago4:22

4:22

Squash bees are out early in the morning and moving pollen around well before honey bees even arrive. Research done by the Department of Agriculture found that squash bees “are largely responsible for the production of cultivated squash across North America and much of the Americas.” That is very cool, right? I like buffalo gourd (Cucurbita foetidi…

1
Small Wonders 4:27

4M ago4:27

4:27

It was a recent morning of watching mud daubers come and go through our barn door that reminded me of the small wonderful things that happen around us daily. So I went to the Books and Bones Retreat and started a list of some small wonders I notice around our place and beyond, And, I know that we all have small wonders happening in our yards or par…

1
Monsoon Symphony 4:01

4M ago4:01

4:01

Looking at storms out across the land from our little homestead near the Ol’ Guajolote.By Petey Mesquitey

1
Petey Does Mimosas 4:34

4M ago4:34

4:34

It was Linnaeus that created the name Mimosa from the Greek: mimos for mime and the suffix osa for resembling. As to the plant jabbered about in this episode, it was Asa Gray that named the species grahamii to honor James Graham and probably at William Emory’s suggestion…fellow soldier surveyors in the field. The photos are mine.…

1
Columbines in the Borderlands 4:28

5M ago4:28

4:28

Lemme see… I forgot to include the Baboquivari Mountains along with the Huachuca Mountains as a place to find Aquilegia longissima. I’m thinking that will get my son-in-law Jared pretty excited as we have been talking about how the Baboquivaris must have a treasure trove of cool plants. Yup, looks like. The meaning of the genus name Aquilegia is ta…

1
Rainbows and Warblers 4:06

5M ago4:06

4:06

Arizona rainbow hedgehog cactus is Echinocereus rigidissimus. That name hasn’t changed, but the black throated gray warbler is now Setophaga nigrescens…no longer Dendroica. Jeez, but okay, okay, I’ll make a pencil note in our Peterson and Sibley field guides. I like a field guide with checks and notes anyway. The photos are mine of a rainbow hedgeh…

1
High in the Mountains 4:10

5M ago4:10

4:10

Maianthemum racemosum is in the family Asparagaceae and there are two subspecies of Maianthemum The subspecies out here in the mountainous forests of the western U.S. is amplexicaule, so it reads like this: Maianthemum racemosum ssp. amplexicaule. Between the two subspecies, False Solomon’s Seal can be found all over North America…all over…and into…

1
Big Yellow Sign 4:03

5M ago4:03

4:03

I love that sign. I call it the Robert Frost sign. I think Ms. Mesquitey is tired of me saying that. I love her too.By Petey Mesquitey

1
Desert Ironwood Tree Festival 4:18

6M ago4:18

4:18

I love desert ironwood trees….love peering under them to see the plants they’re nursing …love the purple and white flowers and seed pods that follow… never minded the spiny branches tugging at my clothing and sometimes drawing blood… and, love the litter beneath them. The desert ironwood is a beautiful tree…yeah, it is. The photo is mine.…