This is a very abbreviated and incomplete list. It hits some of the hilights.
Prickly Pear - Nopal - (Opuntia engelmannii) - common flat pad cactus, often grows over 2 feet tall, sometimes 8 ft.
The young -leaves- can be sliced up and cooked.
The fruit - at the base of the flowers) when purple and ripe (peeled) is quite edible.
Desert Christmas Cactus - Tasajillo - Turkey Pear (Opuntia leptocaulis) - a thin stick-like cactus with small bright red fruits.
Fruits are eaten by turkey and deer.
Chapote - Mexican Persimmon - Texas Persimmon - Black Persimmon (Diospyros texana) - shrub or tree, leaves ovate, flowers white Feb.-June.
fruit is a black berry eaten by turkey, coyote, javelina, racoon, deer.
Catclaw - Una de Gato (Acacia greggii) - a thorny thicket plant - tiny leaves alternate - fluffy flowers.
Huisache - (Acacia minuata) - a thorny tree, grows up to 15 ft. tall with several trunks.
Flowers look like fuzzy balls and have distinctive spicy smell.
Fruit is a bean. - There are 4 or 5 varieties of Acacia in south Texas.
Note that the wooden beads that Baden-Powell got in Africa were of Acacia wood.
Ebano - Texsas Ebony (Chloroleucon ebano) - a robust tree (for s. Texas standards) with tiny leaves - leaves alternate bipinnate compound.
Fruit is a large bean, eaten by javelina and rodents. The seeds can be roasted and ground to make a coffee-like drink.
There is a large specimine of this on the south side of the camp office.
Retama (Parkinsonia aculeata) - a short green barked tree, green stems and tiny leaves - has yellow flower
Fruit is a bean. - This tree is very common.
Mesquite - Honey Mesquite (Prospis glandulosa) - a short tree which grows abundantly.
Leaves are alternat, bipinate compound. Flowers are yellowish green.
Fruit is a long thin bean which is an important source of animal food.
It is also edible for humans - some make jelly from Mesquite beans.
SaltCedar - Athel (Tamarix aphylla) - a tree which looks feathery at a distance. Leaves are like stiff bits of string.
Bark is reddish brown to gray. It was sometimes planted as windbreaks.
It is native to Africa and the Middle East.
It sucks an incredible amount of water from the soil and stunts the growth of anything near it.
Smaller plants
Blue Salvia - Blue Sage - Mejorana - Crespa (Salvia ballotaeflora) - a aromatic shrub with much branched square stems.
Leaves pubescent, simple, opposite with toothed margins. Flowers bluish or purple.
The dried leaves are used for flavoring meats.
Yucca - Spanish dagger - (Yucca treculeana) - sharp pointy leaves rise up from the crown.
White bunches of flowers grow on a stem that rises above the crown.
This is an incredibly useful plant, as a nesting site for birds, as food for the hearty javelina
The fibers in the leaves make rope, the sharp leaf ends with fibers attached make ready-threaded needles.
The flowering heads may be harvested and eaten as a salad or sauteed with nopalitos and onions.
There are other varieties of yucca in S. Texas.
Coyotillo - (Karwinskia humboldtiana) - shrub, with no thorns, with simple leaves that have ribs running out from the mid rib.
Flowers are small and greenish. Fruit is a brown or black drupe (looks like a berry.)
Seeds and leaves are poisonus to cattle, goats and pigs.
Oddly the fruits are eaten by coyotes and chacalaca.
Lotebush - Gumdrop tree - Clepe (Ziziphus obtusifolia) - spiny shrub, end of each branch is a sharp spine. It is much branched.
Leaves alternate very vaiable in shape with coarsly toothed margins.
Flowers small greenish. Fruite is a black drupe, eaten by coyote and chacalaca.
Cenizo - Purple Sage - Texas Silverleaf (Leucophyllum frutescens) - shrub with no thorns. Leaves simple and fuzzy.
Flowering throughout year - pale violet to purple, some pink or white.
Chilipiquin - Bird Pepper - Bush Pepper - (Capsicum annuum) - a true capsicum pepper edible but hot. It is a low plant.
Leaves are simple (pointed). Flowers are white.
Fruit (small berry) is white when immature turning bright red and sometimes purple.
Fruit is eaten by birds, which distribute the seeds.
Granjeno - Desert Hackberery - Spiny Hackberry - (Celtis pallida) - spiny evergreen shrub. Leaves simple alternat, ovate
Aloe - Aloevera - native to Africa. - fleshy leaves that look like soft versions of Yucca.
The jelly-like juice within the leaves cools and assists healing burns.
Vines
Flowers
Grasses
Johnson Grass
Buffle Grass
Sand burrs
- Wildlife index page.
- Animals index page,
- Insects, spiders and other arthropods etc.
- Return to Camp Perry Index page