The Honey Connoisseur by C. Marina Marchese

Author:C. Marina Marchese
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Published: 2013-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

CATCLAW

FAMILY Fabaceae

GENUS Acacia

SPECIES greggii

OTHER NAMES wait-a-minute tree, paradise flower, devil acacia

You probably couldn’t drive a truck through a thicket of these plants because they are so dense and crowded, but then you probably wouldn’t be driving where they grow anyway, because they find the deepest, steepest arroyos and river trenches in the region to live in. These six- to twenty-five-foot-tall trees are by far the most drought tolerant of the desert honey plants, and they have adapted to drought conditions in a variety of ways. Of course, growing where they do means that when it does rain, they will get water, and their deep roots continue to tap that resource long after the rains have gone. When it comes, however, the water comes in a rush, and this is important. Catclaw seeds need to be scarified—that is, bruised and beaten—to weaken their very tough seed coat so they can germinate. Simply falling on the ground in a pod isn’t enough. There was a time when large omnivores were common in the same regions, and they made daily desserts of this somewhat sweet and, to them, nutritious seed. They’d eat a bunch of pods and then wander off, depositing some of the undigested seeds in other places. Having been almost but not quite consumed in stomach acid, the seeds were then able to germinate and grow wherever they fell. Today, the seeds are washed and bumped and bruised as they head downstream but pretty much stay in the arroyos and ditches immersed in their favored alkali, gravelly soil; they grow but no longer expand their range. Not surprisingly, catclaw is one of the few legumes that does not fix nitrogen in the soil it grows in.

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