A Tour of the Kierland Resort Gardens

I spent July 11-14 in Phoenix AZ at the annual Autism Society of America conference. Whenever I attend an event where I am supposed to "focus" on one topic, I invariably find myself straying to other things that interest me. For example, when I was leading a seminar on the Book of Job in Garden City, KS in Feb. 2007, I took a few hours one day to wander over to the city library and study the Encyclopedia of Phobias, Fears and Anxieties. This not only was interesting for me, but it provided the occasion for me to "ease in" to my afternoon talk, since everyone wants to speak about phobias. In other words, the "diversion" is not only a learning experience for me but it provides an occasion for us all to learn and laugh [I recall giving them a quiz on what various "phobias" were].

Well, the same thing happened to me this past few days in Phoenix. I was with tons of people who were very passionate about understanding autism. After listening to their comments for a day, I knew I needed to "escape." But how do you do so when the temperature in the day is 108 during the day and is still 97 at midnight, you have no car and no taxis come to the hotel? Well, I decided upon the bright idea to ask the concierge to have me meet the head groudskeeper at the Resort so he might give me a "foliage tour" of some of the strikingly interesting AZ plants and trees at this Scottsdale resort. Since I am in my "Adamic" (i.e., identification and naming phase) of life, I hoped that this was possible. Sure enough. Just before Friday lunch, Mr. Paul Conley magically appeared at the concierge desk and led me around to point out a new garden that had just been planted, as well as some of the "older" features of this five year-old resort. My essay will name some of these trees and plants, stopping to make brief comments along the way. May it also be an expression of my gratitude to Mr. Conley for his graciousness in showing me around his interesting gardens.

The "Standard" Plants/Trees

At the newly-planted garden there were several exemplars of my favorite desert plant, Echinocactus grusonii, the golden barrel cactus. I wasn't even tempted to see if its bristles were sharp, since they looked just about as imposing as could be. But then he pointed out the Opuntia rufida, or the "Cow blinder," and I knew immediately that I wasn't the first living creature that was tempted to touch this cactus. Though the linked picture of the Opuntia rufida has bristles, the exemplars at Kierland apparently did not. But, as Paul showed me, it did, and the bristles are incredibly sharp. So, I drew back from these plants and almost tripped. No matter, I reached out for the tree, and then quietly groaned in pain (I am sure by this time that Mr. Conley was having second-thoughts about giving me the tour). Why? I had grasped an ironwood tree, Olneya tesota, a native tree of the Sonoran Desert and the longest-living tree in the desert (it can live up to 1,500 years), which seems to be as solid as iron but also has numerous long prickles sticking out of it.

I tried to conceal my discomfort by immediately changing the subject and asking a question about a plant in the ample shade of that tree. The plant turned out to be the famous night-blooming cereus, a flower/plant that blooms each night but whose bloom falls off by the morning. Talk about a flash in the pan or about seeming "wasted" beauty. But I thnk that nature teaches us all kinds of lessons, and one of them might just be that the most beautiful parts of life aren't seen by many people...

More Plants/Trees

Paul took me through a clubhouse where there was the Brittlebush Restaurant, and he decided to show me a brittlebush plant, Encilia farinosa. This plant is a member of the sunflower family, and it yields bright yellow flowers from March to June. By the time I saw it I could only see its brittle branches and silver or grey leaves [By the way, the brittlebush is a member of Compositae, a family of plants misspelled by someone at the 7/9 Portland Spelling Bee]. Then, I saw some color. Paul showed me the "fairy duster," the Calliandra eriophylla. It is a member of the Fabaceae (Pea) family, and its leaves are green and tender, with small, smooth needle-like projections. But it is called "fairy duster" because of its pink-orange puff balls that bloom all year round but especially in Feb.-May. Then he showed me the red bird of paradise, Caesalpina pulcherrima. Though black in winter, this beautiful and eye-catching plant is seemingly in its prime in the heat of the Phoenix summer.

I was going to be late to my noon appointment, but I urged Paul on, to show me more. He pointed out the blue palo verde trees, Cercidium floridum (after the Greek "kerkidon, a weaver's shuttle or comb, and "floridum," meaning abundant flowers), which have a deep green trunk and bipinnate leaves. I learned that bipinnate leaves mean that the leaves are on either side of the petiole or stalk or branch, but the branch is a sub-branch from the trunk. Then he showed me the mesquite trees, both hybrid and unhybridized, the latter of which has smaller and less thick branches, which allow the summer breezes to waft gently through the branches. The sweet acacia trees on the golf course, Acacia farnesiana, were trese that Paul called among his favorite.

Conclusion

Well, we were running out of time, so he quickly showed me a mastic tree/plant, Pistacia lentiscus, which is frequently used in topiaries and really is quite an "experiemental" tree. The dictionary calls it the "lentisk" tree. Then he pointed out one of the most arresting sights of the day, the Quiver Tree, the Aloe dichotoma. The dichotoma comes from South Africa and Namibia and has a trunk that almost could be mistaken for an elephant's trunk. I got a kick out of his explanation of why not many people grow the jojoba, the Simmondsia chinensis for profit. Why? Because the valuable oil of the jojoba is only secreted by the female of the species and, guess what?, you can't determine if an exemplar is female for at least five years after it has been planted. Just think if that were the case among people--no gender determination until 5 or 7 years of age. I wonder what the implications of this would be for gender stereotyping... The name of the plant gives the impression that it was from China, and not Africa, but this article tells us that the botanist Johann Link originally named the species Buxus chinensis after misreading Thomas Nutthall's (1786-1859) label of "calif" as "china." Pictures of it are online.

So, that ended my late morning tour of the Kierland gardens. There were many more species which he showed me, but I don't have space to tell about them here. But I feel, in a strange way, that after this tour with Paul I appreicate Arizona much more than through any other activity I have ever done in the desert.

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