We host events periodically throughout the year. Our events are announced at least 2 weeks in advance to our email list subscribers, and posted here on our Chapter webpage. To join our email list, please contact aznpsphoenix@gmail.com.
Our activities are open to Chapter members as well as the general public, unless stated otherwise. If you’re interested in becoming a Chapter member, please view the Membership page. Yearly membership is just $30 for individuals, $15 for students, and $35 for families.
Additional Events
View the AZNPS Events Calendar to learn about upcoming events hosted by other Chapters throughout the state. Also, recordings of many presentations are available to watch on the AZNPS YouTube page.
Join our virtual community!
To stay up to date on our meetings and other activities, please join our email list.
Follow the AZNPS Phoenix Chapter’s Facebook page for more information about local native plants news, research, and events!
We also invite you to follow our Chapter on Instagram and use the hashtag #aznativeplants to help us raise awareness of Arizona’s amazing native plants!
Seeking native plants to use in landscaping?
Native Landscaping Plants
View our Chapter’s Plant List for Metro Phoenix to learn which plants are local to our area. It highlights plants that are: 1) native to the Phoenix metro area, 2) beneficial to wildlife, 3) low-water-use, 4) relatively easy to care for, and 5) generally available at local nurseries or seed suppliers.
Some have more variety than others, and inventory changes frequently or may be seasonal. So, it is best to inquire with a few nurseries by phone or email to determine which one suits your needs.
Seasonal Plant Sales
Several local organizations hold desert plant sale fundraisers in the Spring and Fall. We’ll update this announcement if/when additional native plant sales are scheduled in the metro Phoenix area.
Monsoon season and fall are terrific times to add wildflower seeds to your landscape, assuming it rains! For a wide variety of Arizona native plant seeds, we recommend the following sources:
Maricopa Native Seed Library – The public may obtain up to 3 free seed packets per month. Available at several Maricopa Community Colleges libraries.
Glendale Public Library: Seed Library – Library card holders may obtain up to 3 free seed packets every 7 days. Mostly garden seeds, but some wildflower seeds are available.
If you feel there’s a local nursery, native plant fundraiser, or seed supplier we should add to our list, please let us know!
Participate in a local nature walk or educational event!
Many local organizations host free or low-cost seasonal nature walks, interpretive hikes, gardening classes, and educational activities with a focus on native plants & habitats. Learn more by clicking on the links below.
If you are interested in volunteer activities related to restoration, invasive species control, gardening, conservation, or scientific research, we recommend contacting the following organizations.
These are citizen science and community science projects you can participate in on your own at home, during a walk in your neighborhood, or while visiting Arizona’s public lands.
Contribute photos and information about your wildlife sightings to have them identified by other iNaturalist users. “Research grade” observations also contribute to scientific research.
Observe plants as part of this national program to help scientist understand how plants are responding to long-term changes in climate. Or, join their Milkweeds and Monarchs project which is studying whether monarch butterflies prefer to lay eggs on non-flowering milkweed plants.
Monarchs need milkweed and nectar plants, so hopefully you have these growing in your yard or neighborhood! Join this monarch “tagging” project to help document Western monarch migration.
Help RiversEdge West track the spread of tamarisk beetles (Diorhabda spp.) across the western United States and Mexico. Data is used for an annual distribution map that notes presence and absence of tamarisk beetles.
If you see milkweed plants or monarch butterflies, eggs, or caterpillars while outdoors, take a photo and submit your sighting to this regional project.
Participate in their Land Cover project to help scientists create better maps. Or, join the Trees project by taking height and circumference measurements.
Access digitized natural history data online to help transcribe and decipher field notebooks, photographs, museum labels, and data sheets from around the world.
Chapter News
Plant Profile: Desert Ironwood
Posted on May 31, 2021
Guardian of the Desert
By Kathleen M. McCoy, Master Naturalist, AZNPS Phoenix Chapter Member
What thorny, long lived, slow-growing giant can nurture a wide range of plants, provide roosts for birds, and produce protein-rich seeds for animals? The Desert ironwood (Olneya tesota) can do all the above and more!
A member of the Leguminosae family, Desert ironwood’s natural boundaries correspond closely with those of the Sonoran Desert. Additional names for this endemic tree within the U.S./Mexico borderlands include Ironwood, Palo Fierro, and Palo de Hierro, and Tèsota.
Commonly found in washes and hillside drainages, Ironwoods thrive in warm areas below 3,000 feet. The Ironwood Forest National Monument, located 25 miles northwest of Tucson, was established in June 2000 and provides protection for one of the richest areas of Ironwood trees.
Ironwood trees strongly influence the distribution and quantity of hundreds of wildlife species by functioning as a “nurse plant” and a “keystone species.” Canopies of mature trees provide microenvironments advantageous to understory plants, with winter temperatures several degrees warmer than open areas. In addition to protecting seeds and seedlings from extreme cold, Ironwoods also provide safety from radiation and predation.
The perennial Ironwood can remain as a many stemmed, 6-feet high spiny shrub, or erect and spreading with a low canopy with a thick trunk reaching 30 feet or more. This semi-deciduous native tree is covered with grayish-green leaves that endlessly drop and regrow throughout the year. At the base of each leaf are excruciatingly sharp, slightly curved paired spines. The piercing thorns and low canopy protect small reptiles and desert mammals from larger prey and provide forage, cover, and nesting sites.
As one of the tallest trees in the desert scrub, with a potential life span of 800 years, its canopy is used by nearly 150 bird species. Local and migrating birds, such as endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy-owls, build nests in Ironwoods. Hawks and owls often use bare branches as perches and roosts.
In April and May, small pale lavender or purple flowers blanket the tree, but only for about two weeks. Ironwood flowers and fruit may occur in most years, but are abundant only four years per decade. Native bees are commonly attracted to the flowers. After pollination, ironwoods produce slightly curved, knobby pods containing up to eight shiny dark brown hard-shelled seeds. These are an important food source for native fauna in early summer.
The Ironwood is also beneficial to humans and was widely used as food by the Cahuilla, Mohave, Papago, Pima, and Seri indigenous people. The peanut or soy flavored seeds were eaten either raw, dry roasted, or ground for flour. Roasted seeds have been used as a substitute for coffee beans.
The tree’s wood has social and economic impact as well. The name “Ironwood” refers to the hard, heavy heartwood so dense it cannot float. The trunk is highly resistant to rotting, and may remain intact up to 1600 years. Wood was used for fuel, as well as for making various kinds of tools and implements like digging sticks and shovels. Ironwood also added to the aesthetic of daily life by providing wood for weaving frames, musical instruments, and the beautiful carvings of the Seri.
Popular literature often uses the term “Datura” for the 9-12 species in this genus interchangeably even though they are not the same plant. Datura occur widely throughout the temperate and warmer parts of both the Old and New World. In the Southwest, our local species, Datura wrightii (syn Datura meteloides), is colloquially termed Sacred datura or Sacred thorn apple.
Photo credit: Marleigh Fletcher
Datura species can vary from the perennial Sacred datura, which can grow up to 3-5 feet tall and several feet wide, to the much smaller annual Moon flower (D. discolor), measuring just 18-24 inches tall. Sacred datura can be found worldwide but qualifies as native in Arizona due to its historical presence and ability to support local fauna. For example, Brown hornworm (Manduca sexta) caterpillars devour the flowers and leaves and the moths use the underside of the leaves for laying their eggs. This plant is found across Arizona between 1,000-7,000 feet elevation and typically grows in disturbed areas, often along roadsides.
Sacred datura flower and leaves. Photo credit: Lisa Rivera
Likely to catch your eye are its pretty, lily-like trumpet-shaped white flowers, which can reach up to 6 inches long and 3 inches wide. The fragrance of Sacred datura flowers is sweet, as opposed to the foul odor of its sticky, fuzzy dark green leaves when crushed. Variations in leaf and flower colors or sizes result from different growing, lighting, and moisture conditions.
The flowers produce a small round melon-like fruit covered with spikes which has inspired another common name, “thorn apple.” When dry, the fruit pod pops open to disperse the seeds which sprout easily, fresh or dried, and grow vigorously requiring little to no water. Although excessive cold can cause foliage to die back, the plant’s large tuberous roots will be ready to provide new growth once conditions are more favorable.
Sacred datura fruit. Photo credit: Lisa Rivera
Sacred datura, a member of the potato (Solanaceae) family, is also called deadly nightshade for good reason. All parts of the plant, especially the seeds, contain dangerous levels of anticholinergic tropane alkaloids. However, concentrations of active chemicals vary widely in different parts of the plant.
When ingested by animals, including humans, it can be fatal. Toxic elements affect the autonomic nervous system and can result in blindness, lethargy, sweating, and dry mouth. Survivors typically have significant damage to lungs, stomach, intestines, kidneys, and/or heart which may be coupled with mental impairment.
Even though this plant is the most poisonous narcotic known, archeological evidence shows that Sacred datura has been used by humans in the Southwest for at least 3,000 years. In lesser doses, it is a hallucinogen used to boost sensory perceptions, thought processes, and energy levels. All species of Datura have been revered as sacred visionary plants by Shamans and many cultures worldwide.
For those of you who do not know me, I have had a whorl wind tour over the past ten years, moving from homes in the Washington, DC suburb of Fairfax to a farm in rural Orange County, VA, then to San Antonio, TX, and finally here to Phoenix. Throughout these moves, I have found both human and natural friendship in the form of creating pollinator gardens.
I’ve made a million garden mistakes along the way. I still don’t know what I was thinking when I planted Passion vine (Passiflora incarnata) beside my she shed in rural Virginia. Let’s just say ‘exceeds expectations’ is a polite way to say how much that plant grew. The happy side of that accident was the number of Gulf fritillary butterflies I had hanging around the place.
Honey bee zooming in on Mexican fence post cactus (Lophocereus marginatus).
But the more butterflies my garden plants attracted, the more I needed to learn about pollinators in general. I began wondering about the bees I was seeing and marveling at the flies and beetles on my plants. The more plants I installed, the more I would see creatures I’d never paid any mind. So began my descent into symbiotic relationships within plant communities and my questions exploded exponentially.
Fortunately, I found this wonderful book, Attracting Native Pollinators. It is written by The Xerces Society, an environmental organization dedicated to research and support of the role of invertebrates in the environment.
With a text divided into four sections, this book begins with an introduction to the topic of pollinators and pollination, providing an overview of pollinator biology and commentary on several types of bees, flies, butterflies, moths, and beetles. It concludes with the threats pollinators face, to include loss and fragmentation of habitat, climate change, and pesticides/GMO crops.
In part two the authors discuss a number of ways to take action. Home, school, and community gardens are probably of interest to all of us. This portion of the book provides a simple introduction to providing foraging habitats and nesting and overwintering sites. It also includes information on how to help pollinators in natural areas, greenspaces, and farms.
Geron bee fly on Desert chicory (Rafinesquia neomexicana).
Part three engages the reader in a deeper dive into the bees of North America, discussing bee families and their unique needs.
Finally, in part four, the reader gets some practical advice in creating pollinator-friendly landscapes. I think those of you so inclined to design your own gardens will find these chapters particularly interesting as they provide sample garden plans and recommendations by region for pollinator and butterfly host plants.
Engelmann’s hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus engelmanni) with a solitary desert bee.
Like all books designed for a wide audience, this book is inclusive of all regions of the United States. It will no doubt inspire you and leave you seeking out more specific information about pollinator-friendly plants native to the many regions of Arizona.
