Low-Water Trees Leather-Leaf Acacia or Acacia craspedocarpa Medicinal Uses

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 154 -365

Endemic to Western Australia, it occurs in watercourses, on floodplains and alongside rivers throughout south-central Western Australia.
Hop mulga is a spreading, shrubby tree that can grow to three metres but it is usually smaller. Like most Acacia species, it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. These are bluish green, about two centimetres long and one centimetres wide. The flowers are yellow, and held in cylindrical clusters up to two centimetres long and five millimetres in diameter. The pods are broad and flat, and resemble the pods of the hop plant.
 

In spring individual, small, bright yellow, elongated rod flowers are produced. Tan-colored, flat, 2" long pods develop from the flowers. The botanical name probably is drawn from a description of these pods since crasped translates to broad in Latin and carp refers to fruit. Leather Leaf Acacia is moderately cold hardy (15 to 20 F) and grows well in full and partial sun. It will tolerate a variety of soils but does best in well-draining soils. 

Established plants are highly adapted to harsh summer conditions and can survive without supplemental irrigation. Watering once a month will ensure limited growth but more frequent irrigation is needed to achieve optimal growth, appearance and flowering. This plant grows slowly and in some landscape applications it may be desirable to install larger container sizes (15 gallon to 36" box) to get more immediate impact.

 

Specimens pruned into tree form can be used as individual specimens or in small groupings. Leather Leaf are most commonly uses an as informal hedge planting or as part of a landscape screen. Because the growth of established specimens can be easily regulated by irrigation practices, A. craspedocarpa offers a low maintenance alternative to Oleanders or other non-desert species used as landscape screens.

Medicinal Uses

 

Ailments of a wide variety are treated with some form of Acacia spp., including 

• diarrhea,  

• laryngitis,

• venereal diseases,

• cuts and abrasions,

•  skin irritation,

•  the pain of childbirth, 

• sores, 

• scabies, 

• aching joints, and 

• congestion 

Habitat

In its native growth areas it is found in red clay or loam, alluvium, stony red earth. In low-lying areas, floodplains, along watercourses, & flats. Xeriscape ornamental in lower elevations in the Phoenix and Tucson areas of Arizona.

Low Water Trees - Acacia berlandieri Common Name Guajillo

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 153-365

Acacia Berlandieri Common Name Guajillo

Senegalia berlandieri (Berlandier Acacia, Guajillo Acacia, guajillo, huajillo) is a shrub native to the Southwestern United States and northeast Mexico that belongs to the subfamily Mimosoideae (wattles) of Fabaceae (legumes). It grows 1 to 5 metres (3.3 to 16.4 ft) tall, with blossoms that are spherical and white, occurring from February through April.

 
The berlandieri epithet comes from the name of Jean-Louis Berlandier,a French naturalist who studied wildlife native to Texas and Mexico. S. berlandieri contains a wide variety of alkaloids and has been known to cause toxic reactions in domestic animals such as goats.
Needs low amount of water.

Guajillo is a small, spreading tree that grows to 12 feet tall by 12 feet wide. It is very shrub-like but can be trained into a small accent tree. Naturally multi-trunked, it is evergreen in the low elevation zones and briefly deciduous where winters have regular frosts.
 
The compound light-green leaves are divided into many tiny leaflets giving Guajillo an interesting, fern-like appearance. Variable sized thorns are present on branches. In the late spring, hundreds of creamy white flower clusters burst into bloom. These ball-like flower clusters are sweetly fragrant. Native to Texas and the Chihuahuan desert, Guajillo is usually grown as a large, rounded shrub but is easily trained to a small tree.

Distribution
 
Guajillo grows in sandy soils and shallow ridge sites in south Texas and the very southern portion of the Texas Hill Country.  
Elevation: Native at 1,000 to 3,000 feet.

Maintenance
 
Plant Guajillo tree in the fall in full sunlight and in well-drained soil. Guajillo is drought-tolerant, surviving on low amounts of rainfall in nature. However, it will benefit from regular watering in spring and summer. It has a moderate growth rate and may take a few years to achieve small tree stature. Being native to nutrient-poor, limestone soils, Guajillo grows extremely well in Southern Arizona without the addition of fertilizer. Water established Guajillo trees once a week in the summer and every two to three weeks in the winter. Prune the lowest two or three limbs in spring to shape and train into a small tree. Prune away dead or damaged limbs in the early spring.

Uses

This is a very important honey-plant, or tree, rather, in Texas, for the dry arid portions where there is little or no irrigation, and where nothing, in fact, grows except mesquite, catclaw, sage-brush, and other desert plants. The fact that it does not depend on irrigation, and needs only a scanty amount of rain early in the season, makes it most valuable to the bee-keeper in those regions where it grows and yields large quantities of beautiful water clear honey. Indeed, it is the finest produced in Texas, and is so nearly water white as to be almost as clear as pure water. It is at its very best in the region of Uvalde, Texas

About Deforestation and Desertification

As a result of deforestation large area of the earth suffer from drought.
The process of forest destruction continues to this day in different area of the globe. Some societies realize that this aggression against nature affects us all. There are area of the globe where the air is hard to breath.
 
This Blog wants to offer solution for the type of trees to be planted on different areas that became deserts.
There are sand winds in big cities and temperature that are hard to live in in other cities.
Some large areas are managed by governments that have people responsible to give licenses to cut the forests; some are managed by private citizens.

There were periods of time when cutting the forest was considered a right of the conqueror of the land or the right of the owner of the land.

We are addressing those interested in replanting areas without vegetation.

Trees and City Architecture

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 152-365


Nature in the city is far more than trees and gardens, and weeds in sidewalk cracks and vacant lots. It is the air we breathe, the earth we stand on, the water we drink , and the organisms with which we share our habitat.


It is the consequence of a complex interaction between the multiple purposes and activities of human beings and other living creatures and of the natural processes that govern the transfer of energy, the movement of air, the erosion of the earth, and the hydrologic cycle.


The city is part of nature. The realization that nature is ubiquitous, a whole that embraces the city, has powerful implications for how the city is built and maintained, and for the health, safety, and welfare of every resident….
 
The city must be recognized as part of nature and designed accordingly. The city, suburbs, and surrounding countryside must be viewed as a single, evolving system within nature, as must every individual park and building within that larger whole.

Ecological urbanism is a broad approach to urban design and planning; related to it are aspects of multiple interrelated movements: 

• ecological design, 
• environmental art
• landscape planning ,
• sustainable design and planning, 
• green architecture , 
• green infrastructure , 
• green urbanism, 
• landscape urbanism
• and industrial ecology .

 

Important concepts of ecological urbanism include: cities are part of the natural world; cities are habitats; cities are ecosystems; urban ecosystems are dynamic and interconnected; every city has a deep, enduring context; urban design is a tool of human adaptation. These fundamental propositions are the foundation from which to derive principles for an ecological approach to the design of cities.

 

In most cities, human activities interact with natural processes to create a typical urban climate, urban soils, urban hydrology, urban plant and animal communities, and characteristic flows of energy and materials. Recent research, however, has revealed exceptions to these generalizations, which were based on studies of places with a temperate or Mediterranean climate.

 

Arid cities, for example, are cooler than the surrounding deserts at some times of day due to irrigation.

Cities are places for living: for individuals and groups, for humans and other species. As habitats, they must provide settings for the biological and social needs of the organisms who dwell there: for growth, movement and exchange, communication, making and building, teaching and learning, work play and reflection.

 

Cities provide habitats for many nonhuman species from microbes to trees, from insects to fish, birds, and mammals. Some species are indigenous, others are typical urban species, some are central to human health and prosperity, a few are hostile .

Urban development tends to reduce biodiversity, with far-reaching adverse effects. Enhancing biodiversity is not just important for plants and animals have argued that the presence of urban wildlife is closely linked to human well-being.

 Pleasure and meaning are basic human needs, and “the mental sense of connection with nature is a basic human satisfaction, the most profound aspect of sensibility

Nature in the city must be cultivated, like a garden, rather than ignored or subdued.



Ecological urbanism is critical to the future of the city and its design: it provides a framework for addressing challenges that threaten humanity, such as global warming, rising sea level, declining oil reserves, rising energy demands, and environmental justice, while fulfilling human needs for health, safety, and welfare, meaning and delight.