Missouri Foxtail Cactus [Escobaria missouriensis] Observations in Yellowhouse Canyon, Lubbock, Texas

To-date I have located roughly 30 separate Escobaria missouriensis specimens, in Mackenzie Park and 1.5 to 3 miles south along Yellowhouse Canyon near Dunbar Historical Lake. Some of the logged observations include 4-8 individuals.

Here's what I wrote in a comment to one observation:

Cannot overrule the possibility that these originate from one or more planted specimens. There are two clusters of tiny ones on a high point of a Mackenzie Park side canyon [with one larger cactus on high ground] , and two found 1.5 to 2 miles farther down Yellowhouse Canyon, on opposite sides of a lake.

The largest by far is down-canyon. I've tried to report on iNaturalist nearly every specimen I've observed [though one or two observations have several nearby specimens lumped together.

Note that I have observed these ONLY on unplowed, unbroken-by-plow parklands still more or less in native condition. [No longer true; several lie on once graded broken ground near the mountain bike trailheads to the west trails at Dunbar Lake. These are below a large cactus on unplowed ground, and one can imagine seeds washed downhill from that cactus germinating.] MOST of the Lubbock parkland that make up the Canyon Lakes greenbelt has been leveled and planted with non-native grass.

I am wondering how these cactus seeds could be spread; the clusters in Mackenzie Park could have come from seeds spread by gravity from one ancestor, and in fact there is one larger cactus there on the highest ground, but the two downstream, one on a very high butte and higher than the largest of all across the canyon, no. Birds?

I was cagey about location of these cactus, fearing cactus theft, and even located some observations a hundred yards from where they were. No more; unlikely that any local plant thieves would be checking in here. If anybody wants to be guided to these plants or others, contact me. I live only a mile or so away from the canyon and would usually be glad of the company.

Posted on April 24, 2018 04:08 PM by thebark