Natural History

Plants & People Gardens
Guidebook

The ethnobotany guide available here to download will lead you through the Black Range Museum backyard gardens. These were designed to enhance our medical room displays, highlight native plants that were critical to lives of early people here such as the Apache and later Hispanic and other settlers, and also demonstrate the use of beautiful native plants in a landscape setting.

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This Guide and purchase of our Native Landscape Plants were funded by the Native Plant Society of New Mexico Carter Conservation Fund

Color Photos of Plants found in the Guide

Agave parryi

Agave parryi flower stalk emerging from rosette of the plant (which blooms once then dies) — Agave flower stalk

Yucca baccata, Banana Yucca with showy cream-color flowers — Banana Yucca (Yucca baccata) in flower

Large Soaptree Yucca, Yucca elata plant with large dry flower stalks — *Soaptree Yucca (Yucca elata)

Creamy white flowers on stalk of Soaptree Yucca (Yucca elata) — *Flowers of Soaptree (Yucca elata)

Dasylirion wheeleri growing in its natural habitat south of Hillsboro NM — Sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) in native habitat

Dasylirion wheeleri with native buckwheat — Sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri )

Nolina texana — Beargrass (Nolina texana)

Prickly Pear cactus with numerous yellow flowers. — *Prickly Pear (Opuntia engelmanii)

Prickly Pear fruits — *Prickly Pear fruits (Opuntia engelmannii)

Cholla in full pink flowers (Cylindropuntia imbricata var. spinosior) — *Cane Cholla (Cylindropuntia imbricata)

Algerita, Barberry with yellow flowers. — *Algerita (Mahonia haematocarpa)

Bright red fruits of Algerita — *Algerita fruits

Hackberry leaves close

Chilopsis linearis, Desert Willow in flower — Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) flowers

Ephedra stems up close to see cones — Ephedra trifuca

Apache Plume Flowers — *Apache Plume Flowers (Fallugia paradoxa)

Pink, feathery Apache Plume seeds — *Apache Plume Seeds (Fallugia paradoxa)

Ocotillo flowers — *Ocotillo flowers (Foquieria splendens)

New Mexico Olive — New Mexico Olive (Forestiera neomexicana)

Larrea tridentata plant — Creosote (Larrea tridentata)

Seeds hanging from branches of Larrea tridentata — Creosote Seeds

Honey Mesquite leaves — Honey Mesquite leaves (Prosopis glandulosa)

Rhus trilobata shrub in flower — Three Leaf Sumac (Rhus trilobata)

Rhus trilobata flowers up close — Sumac flowers

Flowers of Sambucus mexicana, Mexican Elderberry — Elderberry (Sambucus mexicana)

Hesperaloe parviflora — Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora)

Flower buds of Red Yucca — Red Yucca flowering (Hesperaloe parviflora)

Red Salvia — Red Salvia (Salvia greggii)

Photos marked (*)

Used with permission and our thanks to Western New Mexico University Department of Natural Sciences
and the Dale A. Zimmerman Herbarium.

Coming Soon!

Walk Through Time
Geology

A backyard display is in process that will highlight the geology of the Black Range and foothills that resulted in the development of the Gold and Silver in our area — these created the rush that led to the communities of Hillsboro and Kingston developing in the 1800’s.