Southwest Highways March 2013 | Page 17

March 2013 16

Bluebonnets:

The Icon of Spring in the South

By Susan Decker

With its feathery leaves and long, bumpy seed pods, The Honey Mesquite is a recognizable medium-sized flowering tree that lives in the southwest, from California to Louisiana, though 76% of America's mesquite trees grow in Texas. This drought-tolerant tree is hard to remove; when you cut one down, a new, multi-trunked mesquite will quickly grow in its place. The Honey Mesquite is native to the southwest, but has become invasive in other parts of the world, making the IUCN's "World's Worst 100 Invasive Species".

Mesquite provides good slow-

burning firewood great for smok-

ing meat. The deep taproots are

often larger than the trunks, and

they can be dug up for firewood.

Animals like to eat the sweet seed

pods, and people can grind them

into a flour to make bread. The

green pods can be made into a

syrup, and a broth can also me

made from boiled pods. They are

still commonly eaten in Mexico,

and can be fermented to make

wine. Mesquite pods can be used

as fodder for sheep, goats and pigs.

The tree usually grows 20 to 30 feet high, but can reach heights of 50 feet. Honey mesquites produce fragrant yellow flowers that bees turn into great honey, hence the tree's common name.

Few plants in today’s world determine when people take their vacations, but bluebonnets have the power to do just that. Visitors to Texas often call ahead and ask when the bluebonnets will be out this year so they can arrange to visit their families in fields of blue for the perfect postcard photo and the thrill of being swallowed by a soft sea of color. New parents especially love to photograph their tots smiling among the blooms, and why not? There is something about the bluebonnet that sings to us.

Perhaps it is the blue itself, because so few plants are truly blue. Perhaps it is because these showy masses are there for anyone to see on the roadsides, accessible, inviting, belonging to no one person but the whole of Texas. The image of a bluebonnet, painted on everything from T-shirts to rocks, is as much a symbol of Texas as the lone star and longhorns. But just what are bluebonnets all about?

There are several species of bluebonnets in the southern states, not just in Texas, and some are quite different from those decorating walls and kitchens. Some say the name bluebonnet comes from the shape of the flower that resembled a pioneer woman’s bonnet. All bluebonnets are lupines, a genus of legumes that fixes nitrogen in the soil. Of the 54 species of lupines in North America, only a certain few species, mostly in the south and especially Texas, are called bluebonnets.

Bluebonnets are easy to spot even months before they flower, from their bluish green, fingered leaves that emerge in a winter rosette. The flowers themselves are small and shaped like those of its pea family cousins, like a tiny face with its tongue sticking out. Each flower opens on a flower spike of 10-50 flowers, although many people think of the whole spike as one big, puffy flower. Bluebonnets make pea-like seed pods, which when they turn brown can be saved for planting in the Fall, if the caterpillars haven’t gotten to them. The bluebonnet is one of the host plants of the pretty little Elfin and Hairstreak butterflies, another benefit of the wildflower.