by Dallas Baxter
Contributing Writer

I have been to the top of the Empire State Building three times, but only one of those was during the twelve years I lived five blocks away from it.

My point? There is a certain amount of taking-for-grantedness about the wonders that abound where we live, no matter where that is. And Trans Pecos Texas, that part of the state west of the Pecos River, is no exception. We may be full of praise and admiration for this sight or that natural wonder, but often our knowledge of the place is pretty sketchy.

The Big Bend Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas decided to right this wrong for its State Symposium in Oct. 2005. Members of the organization took the bull by the horns in presenting a series of ten lectures with topics ranging from geology to water to edible and medicinal plants to sustaining diversity at all levels of life – hoping to present at least a glimpse of the entirety of the Trans Pecos.

And while it’s good news that more than 200 people attending the symposium from across the state got to hear all this, it’s even better news that the series is being repeated Feb. 10 and 11 in Fort Davis for local folks as well as visitors who missed it the first time.

Most every plant begins in the soil, and the soil begins with rock. Geologically, the area west of the Pecos River contains some rock record from each of the major geological periods covering a time span of the past one billion years. During this billion years, our area has been the site of a deep oceanic basin, mountain building episodes, violent volcanic eruptions, warm shallow seas and long quiet periods of erosion.

The Trans Pecos, part of the northern part of the Chihuahuan Desert, sees low sporadic rainfall, high temperatures in some places, mixed mountainous and desert-floor terrain and varying soils reflecting the area’s complex geological history.

The soil types and climactic conditions created by this diverse geology have created a unique plant and animal environment.

Why is the desert a desert? Climactic conditions worldwide contribute to making our high country desert. Winds, temperatures and patterns of evaporation all contribute to the desert terrain.

This area has also been host to human habitation for thousands of years. As stark as much of it may seem, there has been sufficient water, plant and animal life and a favorable climate for farming throughout recorded history. People are a part of nature, too, and learning who was here before us and how they lived are parts of the fascinating history and archeology of the Trans Pecos.

With our almost embarrassing abundance of parks, both federal and state and other land set aside as natural areas and wildlife management areas as well as private conservation groups working to maintain the region’s diverse biology, the Trans Pecos is rich.

In the northeast corner of the Chihuahuan Desert, our small mountain chains within larger mountain ranges cut through mountain basins creating “mountain islands in desert seas.”

The plants and animals in these mountain islands are isolated from other ranges by the arid lands around them, resulting in unique or endemic species sometimes developing in these mountain islands.

Blue bonnets (in the lupine family) are common native plants found alongside Texas highways. (Photo by Bill Lindemann, state president of the Native Plant Society of Texas)

The better these unique communities are known, the better their complex balances can be protected.

Part of this balancing act is the water found in this region. A center of life for historic and pre-historic dwellers, streams, seeps and springs as well as creeks and rivers have attracted plants, animals and people through the centuries.

But both the Pecos and Rio Grande Rivers suffer from inadequate supply and strenuous demand as watersheds are developed or eroded and riverbeds are drained of water along their lengths by farmers, ranchers and human settlement.

Part of the conservation of water depends on the eradication of invasive plants that use water heavily and often render the soil unusable. By crowding out native plants, invasives have also eliminated native birds and animals that cannot use them as food or habitat.

A desert wouldn’t be a desert without cacti, and the Trans Pecos is one of the most cactus-rich regions in the United States. Though Trans Pecos cactus are small, the array of forms and flower colors create a huge variation among the 14 genera, 76 species and 33 varieties of Trans Pecos cacti.

And within a desert that has been home to human habitation for so long, it is not surprising that people living in these arid lands have relied on plants to provide most of their food, medicine, clothing and building materials.

Even today, the knowledge of the medicinal or dietary uses of agave and prickly pear known to ancient hunter-gatherers can have important applications for us.

The presenters in this series are noted members of the Trans Pecos scientific community: Cathryn Hoyt, executive director of the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute; archeologist Andrea Ohl, Center for Big Bend Studies; John Karges, Nature Conservancy of Texas biologist; Beth Francell, Fort Davis landscape designer; Mike Mecke, program specialist for water development in West Texas with the Texas Water Resources Institute; Joe Sirotnak, plant ecologist for the National Park Service stationed at Big Bend National Park; Patty Manning, Sul Ross State University botanist; Mark Lockwood, conservation biologists, Texas Parks and Wildlife, Phil Dering, archeobotanist with the Shumla School in Comstock and Bill Lindemann, retired geologist and current president of the Native Plant Society of Texas.

How do you get to “hear all about it?” Call One-Way Plant Nursery in Alpine, 432/837.1117 for reservations.  

The series will be held at the Fort Davis Methodist Church Fellowship Hall on Front Street, half a block north of the Marfa Highway. The Feb. 10 program begins with a potluck dinner at 5:30 p.m. There are three lectures beginning at 7 p.m. and ending at 9:15 p.m.

The Saturday program begins at 9 a.m. with four lectures, lunch at 12 noon and three lectures beginning at 1 p.m. and ending at 3:15.

There is no charge for the series; the lunch is $10 per person.

With a BFA Design, UT-Austin & M. Div., New York Theological Seminary, Dallas Baxter finds her garden is the natural place for design and theology to coincide. She has been a student of the Big Bend since arriving here five years ago.

The Big Bend Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas presents a two-day lecture series: The Trans-Pecos from A to Z.
Held in the Fellowship Hall of the Fort Davis Methodist Church, the series begins at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 10 with a potluck dinner and three lectures and continues Feb. 11 at 9 a.m. The Feb. 11 program includes seven lectures with lunch at noon and ends at 3:15 p.m.
For reservations, call One Way Plant Nursery in Alpine, 432.837.1117.  The program is free. Lunch is $10 per person.