Desert cities are facing stress from high temperatures and drying-up water tables, but at the same time have huge potential for capturing solar energy. Will today’s desert cities be able to sustain their communities with an economy based off of solar power? But even if that, can those cities design a sustainable way to supply people with water?

Desert cities in the US and Middle East

An abandoned craft market on the way to Page.

The Indian Arts and Crafts Law

Senior year of high school, a friend and I spent lots of time in a natural area just outside the development of our suburb. I still remember the moment she said, “Oh look! What’s that?!” and pulled one of these. 

Finding such a beautiful thing in my own backyard (so to speak) ignited a very deep curiosity for plants and nature.

The cool thing about this plant is that you can tell when it’s been visited by a pollinator. The stigma (the female part of the plant, seen here as the green organs) of passiflora are erect before an insect stops by and carries away pollen from the stamen (the male part of the plant, seen here as the yellow anther + stalk). The erectness of the stigma is to ensure that its own DNA has a chance to be carried away (via pollen grain) out into nature before the plant gets fertilized and the flower morphs into a fruit. A major theme among populations and their survival is the importance of maintaining genetic variety.

If the stigmas are erect, the chances of pollination are slim. The plant senses when its own pollen has been taken, and then the stigmas bow down near the anthers. Hopefully, a visiting insect will come along searching for nectar, and it’s back will inadvertently graze the tips of the hunched over stigma. With some luck, the insect will have unknowingly brought new pollen along with it, and fertilize the flower.

But again, only if the flower has had its own pollen dispersed out first. Talk about priorities.

Co-worker Jim (whose father was the president of the Texas Mycological Society) told me these mushrooms are commonly used by the Chinese as herbal medicine.

A study on the anti-cancer effect of Ganoderma, published in The International Journal of Cancer (1998), here.

Due to the elongated, cohesive structure of their petals, trumpet creepers are pollinated by hummingbirds. A musical symbiosis!

Sometimes it’s hard to find a full scholarly article online, but it’s still worthwhile to read through the abstracts. This abstract is pleasantly informative.

Solanum dimidatum is very common in the South, and grows freely enough to be considered a “weed”. This photo was one of my earliest snapshots of plants in the undeveloped areas of my Houston suburb, and I was shocked to learn that its fruit is terribly poisonous. The fruit, which resembles a miniature tomato, contains a compound called “solanine” which acts* on the nervous system and causes a varied combination of neurological and intestinal symptoms ranging from anorexia to depression, vomiting to diarrhea . Livestock owners in particular have trouble with Solanum when their animals accidentally graze on it, causing “Crazy Cow Syndrome”.

*I’m not sure if solanine acts alone or in conjunction with other compounds to cause these symptoms, but I have read that it is believed to be the main toxic compound within the berries.

Sometimes, lilies are known to produce large quantities of sterile seeds, despite reproducing through asexual vegetative propagation. 

Why go through all that trouble?

After making sure they were safe to eat, the Texas 4000 team enjoyed snacking on raspberries and miniature strawberries all along the Alaska Highway.

Raspberries, along with blackberries and pineapple, are a special type of berry called a “drupe”. Each one of those bumps is botanically considered a fruit called a “drupelet”.

Note the “stunted” appearance of wild fruit.

For my Animal Behavior class, we were tasked with designing and executing a project. Our group decided to explore what time of day bees were most active. We hypothesized that the bees would be most active during the middle of the day due to thermoregulation - the bees might not need to use as much energy to warm themselves up for flight. What we found was the opposite: bees are most active just after the sun has risen and just before the sun sets. 

And here we see the result of mutual symbiosis over a long period of time between a plant and a pollinator. A comfortable fit for the bee.

You’ll also notice the shriveled-up brown flowers. That happens after the ovary within each flower has been pollinated. Since a flower’s main purpose is to attract pollinators, there is no point for plant to invest energy to keep maintaining petals afterwards.

Those green orbs are developing seeds.

A glacier within the Canadian Rockies at Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada.

Now, some science.

 Anchorage, Alaska. 

On my lunch break at the Nature Center, I slowly wandered along the driveway and stopped to look around. Near the base of a tree grew these tiny flowers, no bigger than my thumb.