Remarkable Plants of Texas

I recently bought a wonderful book on native plants of Texas. It’s Remarkable Plants of Texas: Uncommon Accounts of our Common Natives by Matt Warnock, an Austenite.

Matt is an English professor and has collected information and factoids about common native plants, then formed them into compelling stories. For instance, he spends three pages on Plains Coreopsis and tells us that not only is it in the top twenty favorite flowers in our state, but is a current source of dye. Colors range from reddish brown to bright orange-red to gold and even green. The Lakota and Zuni Indians made a red drink from the plant. And some early pioneers added plains coreopsis to their mattress stuffing in order to repel fleas and bedbugs.

The book is divided up by plant types: trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, cacti, grasses, vines and aquatics.

Matt gives the origin of the scientific name, common names, the family, a description plus the habitat and description, much like a field guide. But all this is subordinated to the story of the plant.

I’ve always loved the Osage orange for it's wonderfully graphic fruit. But until I read this book I never knew that the spread of this mostly ignored tree was due to commerce. It was considered a treasure because its wood was so hard and flexible and was so little affected by humidity that it made superior bows. Bows have been made from this tree since 1050 CE. Tribes as far away as Montana and Arizona would trade a horse for a tree. And the seeds were carried long distances and are now found in little islands across the country.

And the trees could be planted and trained within four or five years into a hedge that was “pig tight, horse high, and bull strong” They were used to fence in the prairie before an enterprising inventor used the Bois d’arc as a model for barbed wire.

I keep myself on a strict book limit and planned to get this book, read it, and then donate it to my library. But I keep needing to go back and read something again or share it with a friend so it has earned a permanent place on my bookshelf. And it makes for perfect betimes reading – riveting stories that end in a few pages.