Takwi c Moho U’im

The Desert Grasslands of southeast Arizona and northwest Mexico are a unique habitat, distinct in plant life and structure from plains or prairie grasslands.

They are home to the yucca and beargrass that Native Americans of this region have long harvested for basketry materials. The name Takwi c Moho U’im signifies the importance of the nearby desert grasslands to the original residents of Cuk Ṣon. 

These lands were—and still are, especially for basket makers—their source for many important fiber, food, and medicine plants. The Desert Grasslands are also a habitat for animals hunted for meat, leather, and tools.

Mission Garden’s Desert Grassland display is a microcosm of the grass species, succulent plants, and “shrubby” trees typical of higher desert landscapes. Scattered trees are an integral part of the Desert Grasslands, which, in ecological terms, makes this habitat a “savanna” similar to the landscapes of Africa. 

To observe habitat distinctions, you can compare the grasses, succulents, trees and density of the plant community in the Desert Grasslands Habitat with the low-desert plants in Z’s Garden of Native Plants across the path to the west.

Each grass species of our Desert Grasslands is unique, and useful to wildlife and humans in different ways. On display here are species of graceful grama grasses (Bouteloua), good-food panic grasses (Panicum), high-quality forage muhly grasses (Muhlenbergia), as well as crabgrasses (Digitaria), drop-seeds (Sporobolus), swale-loving tobosa (Pleuraphis), curly mesquitegrass (Hilaria), fluffy beardgrass (Bothriochloa), fingergrasses (Chloris) and more.

Such diversity is fun to explore! Feel free to get up close on the paths to appreciate their beauty, their site preferences, and identifying features. It is also interesting to notice which grasses are actively growing in winter versus summer. Temperature affects their food-making metabolism, therefore the season when each species “stands out.”

Note the several succulent species standing out as focal points above the grasses. Each one grows like a fountain spray of sturdy leaves called a rosette. These fibrous succulents are a major reason the O’odham traditionally visit the desert grasslands to gather basketry and cordage materials, as well as for seasonal food. For fiber they gather takwi (soaptree yucca, Yucca elata), howij je’e (banana yucca Y.baccata and mountain yucca Y.schottii); moho (beargrass, Nolina macrocarpa), and occasionally umug (desert spoon, sotol, Dasylirion wheeleri).

Also, check out the stiff succulents they traditionally harvested for food: a’ut (Huachuca agave, Agave parryi huachucensis and Palmer’s agave, A.palmeri) and ciolim (cane cholla, Cylindropuntia spinosior and tree cholla, C.imbricata).

In summer there may be slender blanketflower (Gaillardia), edible pigweed (Amaranthus), summer poppy (Kallstroemia), Mexican star lily (Milla), Mexican yellowshow (Amoreuxia)—the roots of which were eaten by the Comcaac—, buffalo gourd (Cucurbita)—its fruit used in laundry by the O’odham—, red hummingbird trumpet (Epilobium), or the medicinal clematis vine. Note the different wildflowers you see in the hot or cold season for insight into their metabolism, that is, at which temperature they use carbon most efficiently.

Like African tropical savannas, Desert Grassland landscapes are grassy plains with scattered trees. Our Desert Grasslands have a relationship with oaks and mesquites of more tropical zones to the south in Mexico. Our “miniaturized” Takwi c Moho U’im exhibit includes two velvet mesquite trees (Neltuma velutina, formerly Prosopis velutina), species found in the Sonoita Valley and in the Santa Rita Mountains alluvial fan. A species desert grasslands tree not represented here, because it can’t survive Tucson’s heat, is the toa or wi-yo:ti (“bellota” Emory oak Quercus emoryii) whose acorn is traditionally harvested at higher, cooler elevations.

Now, imagine this Takwi c Moho U’im exhibit, this Desert Grassland Habitat, to be the place where the original residents of Cuk Ṣon would go for their basketry yucca and beargrass. It is a high, rolling plain like Sonoita Valley in southeastern Arizona. Round green mesquites or live-oak trees, and clusters of sculptural succulents are standing out in a sea of golden grasses making waves with the breeze…

• Arizona Native Plant Society educational pamphlet Desert Grasses, AZNPS Urban Landscape Committee, Tucson, Arizona, 1993.
• Arizona Native Plant Society, The Grasses Issue, Plant Press Arizona Vol.45, Number2 Winter 2022; articles by Ries Lindley, Doug Ripley, Debbie Allen, John Scheuring, Dan Robinett, Barbara Thiers, Kelly Allred, Elizabeth Makings, Jennifer Patton, Ben Wilder, Frank Reichenbacher.
• Arizona Native Plant Society website:  https://aznps.com/?=grasses&post_types=plant_press 
• Burgess, Tony L., Chapter 2 “Desert Grassland, Mixed Shrub Savanna, Shrub Steppe, or Semidesert Scrub?—The Dilemma of Coexisting Growth Forms,” in The Desert Grassland, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1995. 
• Koweek, Jim, Grassland Plant ID for Everyone, Except Folks That Take Boring Technical Stuff Too Seriously, Rafter Lazy K Publishing, Arizona, 2016. 
• McClaran, Mitchel P. and Thomas R. VanDevender, Eds., The Desert Grassland, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1995.

For a broader understanding of all North American grasslands

• Brown, Lauren, Grasslands, National Audubon Society Nature Guide, Borzoi Books, Alfred Knopf, Inc., New York, 1997.
• McPherson, Guy R., Ecology and Management of North American Savannas, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1997.