Southwestern 
Native Plants 
^ong has the colorful Southwest been noted 
for its wealth of beautiful wild flowers. 
This vast region presents a continuous pageant of bloom from 
early Spring until frost tinges the leaves many hues and the bril¬ 
liant Winter-berries gleam on the hillsides and prairies. 
One of the first explorers in the sixteenth century, writing home 
marveled at the natural beauty of the land and its abundance of 
plant growth. Tradition says these sixteenth century Spaniards and 
French Crusaders brought to this land, from the Holy Land, the 
lovely blue Lupine, our "Bluebonnet”. It has, since, carpeted the 
land, and, like the verdant hills of its native Syria, is freely inter¬ 
spersed with golden-yellow Daisies, Buttercups, Coreopsis, rich 
scarlet "Wine cups”, and brilliant red tree-cypress (Texas Plume). 
In many cases it is still rather difficult to determine the habitat 
of some of our most widely scattered plants. It has been argued 
that armies surging back and forth for the past four hundred 
years have scattered the seed in transporting food for their cavalry. 
Freight-trains, too, traveling the length and breadth of our prairies, 
have transported seed in the grain, and packing, in their strings 
of boxcars. 
Later, in the first part of the nineteenth century, thousands of 
seed and plants, native to the Southwest, were collected, mounted 
and shipped to the great botanical centers of the world by Berlan- 
dier, Drummond, Charles Wright, Lindheimer, Lincceum, Fendler, 
von Roemer, Prince Paul of Wiirtemberg, Edward Buckley, Wisli- 
zenus, Jacob Boll, John Drinker Cope and Julien Reverchon, work¬ 
ing for such internationally famous botanists as Dr. Asa Grey of 
65 
Continuous 
Bloom 
Appreciation 
by 
Botanists 
