Native to the Northern Chihuahua Desert

[Michael P]

Yes, those night time lows are a lot more favorable.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

I really enjoy your write ups on these native species. Although I live well out of their native range I would love to try some of them.

This was the purpose of my thread. I might be a new kid, but I believe anyone can contribute. I'm glad somebody is getting something from this.
If you, or any other readers have any suggestions or ideas how I can make this better (ie: more interesting, more thorough, less detailed, etc.), please, let me know. If I can be a productive part of the community, let me know how to do so the best way possible.

 

[Michael P]

One thing you could do is find people in your region who grow these species. Not necessarily as bonsai, but as a nursery product. If there are any native plant nurseries around they can give you insight about pot culture as least.

If you don't already have it, How to Grow Native Plants of Texas and the Southwest by Jill Nokes is a good reference. It was published in 2001 but still accurate.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

We have 3 box store garden centers in town, 2 landscapers, and a "real nursery about 18 miles out of town. The next closest plant seller is over 90 minutes away. To get the better quality advice and trees, Albuquerque, Lubbock or El Paso, 4.5 hours or 3 hours. We are extremely geographically isolated here. I'm not complaining, it has its advantages. But there are times that it  is pretty inconvenient.
I'll take a look at this book. If it's valid research, that's not going to change. I'm sure Texas Sage isn't going to wake up one day and decide it's a water-loving plant.

 

[crab apple]

I lived in Southern NM for awaile and always like a tree they called a mexican elder, not sure what it really was, but you could buy them around town. I planted one in my yard, Probably my favorite tree down there and years later when I got into bonsai I thought the mexican Elder would be a good one to try. But I don't live out there no more.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

@crab apple, Sambucus mexicana is known as Mexican Elderberry. This will be my next species. If this is the one you are thinking of, it is a short, stout tree with rugged, shaggy bark and blooms clusters of white, yellow, and/or cream colored flowers in the spring, followed by clusters of blue to black berries toward the end of August through September.
I love this region. But Florida has its own beauty...
...if you can get over the pythons, gators, monkeys, bears, panthers, iguanas, palmetto bugs...
Did I miss any?
We are hoping to visit my brother in JAX the fall of next year or the spring after; he is in the process of moving from Pensacola.

 

[crab apple]

When i moved back to Florida I brought a few of those Mexican Elders with me cuz I liked them so much, they didn't survive long but that was in south florida in the lower Keys so now Im in North Florida I might try another one. It just might work in bonsai soil. occationaly someone visits me from NM, they always bring some frozen green chille but so far I can't get em to bring an Elder tree. Now that I know the correct name I might get one on line.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

Sambucus mexicana or Sambucus cerulea is known as Mexican Elderberry. I've been unable to ascertain as to whether these are different species, or if mexicana is a subspecies that grows at lower altitudes, and further south. From my research, it seems to be a rather short-lived tree, living from about 40 to a little over 100 years, making it a one or two trainer specimen. It is, however, a fast growing shrubby tree with fairly dense foliage, having compound pinnate leaves of a deep glossy green with a leathery texture.
Growing 25 to 40 feet tall and slightly narrower in the landscape, it's rich brown, shaggy, craggy bark is definitely appealing for bonsai, giving it the appearance of age beyond its years.
Usually, there is just a single trunk, but often it naturally develops a graceful movement that starkly contradicts the rugged bark in a pleasing way.
It grows well in a range of light, so long as it is in a moist, well-drained soil (imagine, a tree that already grows best in bonsai substrate!) It grows in the open plains with full sun, or in a backyard as a specimen tree shaded by larger species all around, and any lighting condition in between.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

The examples I see locally can become very shaggy quickly if not maintained, leading me to believe that their fast and vigorous growth would lead to bonsai material faster than the majority of popular bonsai species.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

Most descriptions of the flower fragrance are that it is a pleasantly sweet aroma, although some people consider it somewhat offensive. Personally, the fragrance seems faint and mildly sweet. The flowers are showy, and usually prolific, leading to glaucus clusters of berries from light to medium-dark blues.
Fruit is edible, but often unpalatable raw, as some people are nauseated. Also, the seeds take up most of the volume of the berry, but they make delicious jellies and sauces. Birds love these berries and feed on them throughout the winter, gradually depleting the ornaments of late summer until the leaf buds burst the green of rejuvenation back into the typically gnarled branches.

 

[pandacular]

This is an exceptional thread, I greatly appreciate it...despite being in an almost opposite climate where I can't grow any of these trees.

It seems folks in the SW could use a lot more of this sort of research.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

I appreciate your sentiment! I don't like, for myself, the idea of gaining without giving. So far, I have gained MUCH more from the community here than what I've been able to contribute. Some day, one of these days, I hope to have put into practice the things I learn from others, and my own firsthand experience, so that I can eventually pass on my knowledge to new curators of the art who will then be in the same situation I find myself in currently.
This is one small thing I can do, that I have access to, and maybe it will help someone somewhere. You're right that more research needs to be done and made available, as I have been hard-pressed to find much information about locally native species. Obviously, this being the whole reason for a thread like this.
Of course, it's a slower process than I would like, as the only real opportunity I have is downtime at work. Home time is family time.

 

[ShadyStump]

The Piñon, or Pinyon Pine, has four species (P. monophylla, P. cembroides, and P. quadrifolia), but for the sake of saving the reader from a slow death by boredom, I will focus on Pinus edulis, the Colorado Piñon.

These beautiful trees are a vital part of the environment, as they provide food and shelter for countless species. They are the first on a list of nut trees not cultivated for agriculture. The cones they produce, especially in a mast year, are rarely as large as a ping pong ball. But they are  loaded with nutritious pine nuts, which are an important food source for the grey and the red squirrel, Piñon mice, Piñon Jay, wild turkey, Montezuma quail, porcupine, mule deer, wood rat, countless insects, and others. They are also highly sought after by locals who travel into the mountains collect and sell them as a delicacy.

Very slow growing, this pine is measured at a growth rate of about six feet per hundred years! Averaging about 20 to 35 feet tall and 10 to15 feet widecwith a rounded overallappearance. Their dense, dark green needles grow in pairs. The dark gray bark is scaly and irregularly furrowed. These are aromatic trees, and essential oils can be extracted from trunk and branches, needles, and immature cones.

This is on my wish list. As in, I wish I had the patience for such a slow grower. But still one of my favorites.

Juniperus monosperma, the One-seed Juniper, is a western species of North America. This species usually can have either multiple trunks, or very low branching, which, at a distance may appear as a clump-type shrub. Occasionally, (and my thought is this is caused by early grazing or some other loss of branching at the sapling stage), they have a single, well-developed trunk. In their natural setting, they are rather globular; typically very round, with a deep green mature foliage. The long flakes of bark on mature trees hides a cinnamon colored "new" bark underneath, making for an interesting trunk texture.

These trees produce discreet flowers starting at the end of February into mid-March, releasing pollen that may cause problems for allergy sufferers. The berries are food for birds and mammalian foragers, especially coyotes.

Collection could be a challenge, depending on location. Growing in the open, with a deep soil, the tap root of a five-year tree could reach 30 feet. With their slow aboveground growth rate, this could mean that a two foot specimen may have a root 10 times it's height. But growing on a rocky surface, the lateral roots are likely to dominate, likely allowing for somewhat easier collection.

I couldn't pin down a lifespan for this species, but I did discover that it begins producing seed at 10 to 20 years, but its most prolific seed production begins at 50 to 200 years of age. So with good care, this tree is a good option for desert bonsai for generations to come.

When speaking of habitat, pinus edulus and juniperus monosperma cannot be separated. It is impossible to understate their interconnection in nature; where one is found, so is the other. While the exact species occupying their respective rolls may shift from pinus edulus to pinus macrophylla, or juniperus monosperma to osteosperma (Utah juniper) the piñon juniper woodlands environment is a phenomenon of its own, unlike any other, and very unique to the North American geography. Nowhere else on earth is there an ecosystem characterized primarily by the interaction of two complimentary plant species.

In personal experience, the one seed juniper is more amenable to collection than piñons. You're much more likely to find some fine root nearer the base, and they tend to survive losing root a bit better than pines of any sort.
The foliage is naturally tight and compact, and they develop fairly mature bark relatively quickly if you like to keep it. They have pretty much everything going for them as bonsai.
As I've heard it when researching them, there was once a dead specimen with rings counted to 1800 years old, so they're estimated at a 2000 year potential lifespan.

The two needle piñon, pinus edulus, has a lifespan estimated at around 1500 years. Being one of the slowest growing pines in the world, and a native to arid/semi-arid climates, it - and all piñons really - are amongst the densest and hardest woods of all conifers; on par with many coniferous hardwood producing trees. White settlers new to the region would use it to build wooden plow heads which would last through an entire season or two despite the hardpan clay and rocky soils they were used in.

By all accounts, and in my experience, there's little chance of collecting a mature specimen. Saplings throw down a long deep taproot right off, and bifurcation only produces more the further they go. While one-seeds do similar, they tend to push the fine feeder roots all along, while piñons push them fewer and further between. I've seen piñons growing in a sand pocket atop solid rock, where you'd think it'd have decent root mass, but in stead they sent runners out to the edges of the sand, then out over the bare stone to find another pocket elsewhere. @BonsaiManic wasn't kidding about hundreds of feet being possible.
Where the geology is more amenable to digging, piñons are not as common; they are evolved to make use of the Rocky Mountain geology, and dislike conditions less arduous. I've shared pics before illustrating their fondness for extreme terrain. I admonish anyone attempting to collect these to be VERY judicious; you should be reburying the vast majority of the more mature specimens you come across unless you just like killing trees. Saplings are much more accommodating, but you will spend a couple decades turning it into something good, and a couple generations turning it into something great.