A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1190 entries
desert willow
The desert willow is not a willow. It is Chilopsis linearis, a small tree of Southwestern washes with long narrow leaves that give it a willow’s outline from a distance, and large trumpet-shaped flowers in pink and lavender with purple streaks and yellow ridges down the throat. It grows to about twenty-five feet, blooms from spring into late summer, and hangs slender seed pods that stay on the bare branches all winter.
Etymology
English named it for what it resembles and got the family wrong; it belongs with the catalpa and the trumpet vine. Spanish named it for what it was used for. Mimbre means the withes that get woven into baskets and wicker furniture, and the flowering tree is flor de mimbre. The Mimbres River in New Mexico, and the Mimbres people named after it, carry the same Spanish word. The scientific name is descriptive on both halves: Chilopsis is Greek for lip-like, for the flower, and linearis is for the leaves.
Notes
Desert willow only grows where groundwater is within reach, so a line of it across open country marks a wash that runs underground. The wood was used for hunting bows, which is where the name bow willow comes from, and the flowers draw hummingbirds and large carpenter bees heavy enough to force the throat of the flower open.