Desert Holly

Here at Buckskin Mountain State Park, we have ten interpretive signs located along the trail to explain the desert vegetation. The problem has been that at the second sign, the plant Desert Holly is dead. Today I made an attempt to rectify that by transplanting a new plant. Desert Holly is actually pretty scarce in the park, but some time ago I found some while exploring off trail in an out of the way small wash. I went back there today and dug up a small sample, with the idea being I could get more of the root system. I gently placed it in a large plastic bag and into my backpack. As I was hiking back I got to reflecting on what was different from the collection site and our display site. The leaves on my collected plant seem to almost sparkle with what I guessed was moisture. Our display site is on a windy saddle and I would think that the wind could easily dry out the moisture. The plants that were wild and thriving we located down in a protected area. So I decided to move our sample site across the trail to a more protected site from the wind. It will get the morning sun, but will have some late afternoon shade. I’ll be checking back on it during the next month and a half that we are here to see how it does.