Best KXCI Podcasts (2025)

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Lunch in an Open Shady Forest 4:16

Play Pause

2d 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…

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Flora, Fauna, Friends and Butterfly Weed 4:27

10d 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

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Shrine for the Desert Box Turtle 4:18

15d 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…

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Fallugia in a Book 4:18

25d 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.…

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Mountain Nine Bark 4:07

1M 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…

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A Petey Reminiscence 4:24

1M ago4:24

4:24

By Petey Mesquitey

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Sonoran Desert Milipede 4:03

2M 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

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Snoozing Squash Bees 4:22

2M 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

2M 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

2M ago4:01

4:01

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

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Petey Does Mimosas 4:34

2M 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.…

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Columbines in the Borderlands 4:28

3M 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…

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Rainbows and Warblers 4:06

3M 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…

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High in the Mountains 4:10

3M 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…

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Big Yellow Sign 4:03

3M 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

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Desert Ironwood Tree Festival 4:18

4M 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.…

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Desert Honeysuckle Memory 4:15

4M ago4:15

4:15

Over the years I’ve found populations of desert honeysuckle with different colored flowers, so I’ve grown plants with red brick colored flowers, with orange flowers and with yellow flowers. I’ve read that white flowering plants can be found. Can’t wait! There are other Anisacanthus spp. and cultivars to be found at your favorite native plant nurser…

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Beautiful Feather Bush 4:30

4M ago4:30

4:30

There are 30 species of Dalea found in Arizona, many of which are the the nursery trade because they are so doggone pretty. How cool is that? Very. Feather bush (Dalea formosa) can be found in lots of different plant communities around Arizona, New Mexico and across the border into Sonora and Chihuahua. It sure seems to like warm rocky rubble where…

1
New Mexico Locust and Papilionaceous Flowers 4:16

4M ago4:16

4:16

I have grown New Mexico locust (Robinia neomexicana) in the past for some contract grows and I quickly learned that the spines don’t get any friendlier in cultivation. Oh, and I mentioned that this plant grows in thickets and so where I grew it in our nursery the roots escaped the containers and we now have a small thicket. Yikes! Oh well, we get p…

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Kidneywood Champ 4:31

5M ago4:31

4:31

There are a couple other species of Eysenhardtia found over in Texas and more species as you head into Mexico and as far south as Guatemala. But hey, meanwhile here at home if you live in or like to hang out in Bisbee, Arizona you can find kidneywood (Eysenhardtia orthocarpa) along the sides of the road around Warren and San Jose. I’ve come across …

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Claret Cup Hedgehogs in the Hills 4:19

5M ago4:19

4:19

This was a fun episode to write…well, maybe fun isn’t the right word, but it was great to get excited about hedgehog cactus again. What a hoot! The reference used for the hedgehog cacti jabbered about in this episode is Field Guide to Cacti and Other Succulents of Arizona. A great field guide. I recommend getting the second edition as some changes …

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Small Goddess of Wisdom 4:33

5M ago4:33

4:33

The riparian woodland where we were hiking is around 6,000 ft. in elevation and I think that may be the upper limits of the elf owls elevation range. Elf owls (Micrathene whitneyi) winter in southern Mexico, then migrate in the spring to southern Arizona, southwest New Mexico and west Texas where they breed and summer over in a few different biotic…

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Windy Day Bristlehead 4:15

5M ago4:15

4:15

Bristlehead (Carphochaete bigelovii) is a small shrub that I’m not sure I would have recognized without the flowers and bristles. I wonder if I’ve wandered by this species many times before wondering what the heck it was. The flowers and bristles that helped my ID are contained in a very cool looking long involucre and I read that the throats of th…

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Fermina 4:14

5M ago4:14

4:14

Vines can make a landscape so wild and fermina (Cottsia gracilis) is a great addition to a native landscape, climbing up into a paloverde or maybe an ironwood tree. The flowers of plants in the Malpighiaceae are so distinct and…I dunno…I just love them and if you looked up Cottsia gracilis (Janusia) in a flora it would say that the flowers are dimo…

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Turkey Vultures 4:07

6M ago4:07

4:07

photo credits: Marian and BridgitteBy Petey Mesquitey