This relatively untouched portion of Mackenzie Park is under threat from possibly uninformed decisions of city authorities; hence this project: to protect and preserve. Our Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1825012874221270/

This area is somewhat crescent-shaped and lies north and northwest of the Bayer Museum of Agriculture and south of Parkway/Marsha Sharp Drive. The boundary to the east is Nutmeg and Oak Avenues, and to the west Cesar Chavez Drive. See https://www.inaturalist.org/places/mackenzie-park-wilds [Thanks to Ellen5 for drawing those boundaries and for mentoring us in this undertaking.]

Much of the critical area lies north of horse-statue ridge and between two caliche knobs or high points and Blackwater Draw Creek. On the caliche outcroppings are a number of interesting species including Escobaria missouriensis, Oenothera spp., Downy Indian Paintbrush, milkweeds, etc. As Horticulturalist/botanist @Daretobloom told us, caliche outcrops are the places of greatest plant diversity. Also on the untrodden slopes of those outcrops here and there is a delicate biofilm similar to cryptogamic soil.

Lubbock parks were formed by scraping off native vegetation and leveling the land, then planting with non-native trees and grasses. Only in the Mackenzie Park Wilds and around Dunbar Memorial Lake has the land been left more or less untouched. [There is a very small area or two along the west side of Buddy Holly Recreation Area that preserve native species.]

The purpose of this project is to collect plant and animal observations as a database to support preservation efforts, and as a snapshot of species once there if the area is destroyed by City of Lubbock management. less ↑