Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

Series produced by KXCI

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Petey Mesquitey is KXCI’s resident storyteller.

Every week since the spring of 1992 Petey has delighted KXCI listeners with slide shows and poems, stories and songs about flora, fauna, family and the glory of living in southern Arizona.


211 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First

  • Added: May 03, 2023
  • Length: 04:52
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I could be over thinking the feeling I got when I saw that lone coati from the now named coati mundi bluff, but it was wonderful. The other flora a...

  • Added: May 03, 2023
  • Length: 04:17
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The botanical name of our 3 needle per fascicle (bundle) Chihuahuan pine is Pinus leiophylla var. chihuahuana. Further south into Mexico where the ...

  • Added: Dec 21, 2022
  • Length: 04:35
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I grew and sold California buckthorn for several years. Early on I sold it wholesale to other nurseries, but I also sold it at Farmers Markets in C...

  • Added: Dec 13, 2022
  • Length: 04:18
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Leslie Newton Goodding had a busy career. It was when he worked for the U. S. Department of Agriculture that he collected the type specimen for the...

  • Added: Dec 07, 2022
  • Length: 04:01
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It was the American botanist Soreno Watson, that named the onion collected in Tanner’s Canyon of the Huachuca Mountains to honor Sara Plummer Lemmo...

  • Added: Dec 07, 2022
  • Length: 04:16

  • Added: Dec 06, 2022
  • Length: 04:01
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I thought you’d like to see the fraction of the Galiuro Mountains (Galuros!)

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 05:00
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It’s fun to have favorite plants to look for on excursions into the hills. Looking back at photos and my notes, we have been checking on this parti...

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 04:23
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What a fun discovery in the desert east of Douglas, Arizona. There is just something about these large spinescent shrubs in the buckthorn family, R...

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 04:22
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The genus Heuchera is found in the saxifrage family, Saxifracaceae, with 80 other genera that includes the genus Saxifraga and its 400 species. Yikes!

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 04:16
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The bigtooth maple is no longer in its own family of Aceraceae, but is in Sapindaceae. Molecular taxonomy keeps us plant geeks on our toes.

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 04:29
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My morning ditties are not nearly as amazing as the song of a curved bill thrasher, but they help me begin the day.

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 04:23
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There are a dozen species of Melampodium and I wonder which one Linnaeus was looking at when he honored Melampus with the genus name. And I wonder...

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 04:28
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It's true that every year I jump and shout about the fall blooming plants in the Aster family (Asteraceae) and I proclaim that there should be a fe...

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 04:19
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Fall gets me excited and fall color is a crazy combination of blooming plants and plants with leaves changing color as they prepare to go dormant. ...

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 05:03
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The botanical name for jackass clover is Wislizenia refracta and for clammy weed it’s Polanisia dodecandra. I translate those very cool names in th...

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 04:00

  • Added: Nov 15, 2022
  • Length: 05:00
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The photos are mine of the Mirabilis longiflora flowers and Manduca sexta, the Carolina sphinx moth and tobacco hornworm. Note the seven streamline...

  • Added: Sep 01, 2022
  • Length: 04:21
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Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) are wonderful and lots of folks agree. The little town of Bisbee in the Mule Mountains of Cochise County, Arizona ...

  • Added: Sep 01, 2022
  • Length: 04:29