Tumbleweeds in the Southwest
I often get questions about what it’s like to live in the Southwest. When I talk to people who’ve never been here, they say that certain images often come to mind. Images such as cowboys in chaps and cowboys hats. Native Americans in braids and feathers. Cactus, barbed wire, cattle, saloons, wide deserts, the blue mountains ranges, gully’s, wagons, the Mexican-American Border. All this and more. But whatever comes to mind, who can forget the Tumbleweed.
Tumbleweeds. You’ve probably heard of them. You’ve probably seen pictures of them, or seen them in movies … rolling across a prairie while some cowboy in an old -time movie sings or has a shootout.
But what is Tumbleweed? Where did it come from?
The Tumbleweed is also known also known as “Russian thistle”. Russians called them “Leap-the-Fields”, Germans called them “Wind Witches” and farmers in the Southwest have called them a “Pain-in-the-….” well, you get the picture. They are not native to the United States, originating instead from Europe. They are said to have hitch-hiked to North America in the late 1800’s in imported grains. “Tumbleweed” is the plants nickname, Russian Thistle is it’s common name, Salsola kali is it’s scientific name. (Salsola is derived from the Latin sallere, “to salt,” in reference to the plant’s salt tolerance.) Despite its common name, it is not a thistle at all, but rather an annual weed of the goosefoot family.
It is a prolific reproducer, dispersing typically 250,000 seeds per plant as it bounces and rolls merrily on its way. Each seed remains dormant, germinating when temperatures reach between 28 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The seedling and juvenile plants have bright green, succulent, grass-like shoots, which are usually red or purple striped. Mice, bighorn sheep and pronghorn eat the tender shoots. It grows varying sizes, sometimes reaching diameters of six feet, or remaining smaller than a basketball. In Autumn the plant dries out, dons the skeletal look we are all so familiar with, and then waits for a prevailing wind to knock it about until the base breaks off and it can begin rolling, rolling, rolling until it finds a fence or some other obstruction to catch and imprison it. The seeds it has left behind sleep peacefully until the next spring, when the process begins anew.
Farmers in the Midwest, West and Canada have been known in times of drought to harvest and use the Tumbleweed to feed livestock when nothing else was available.
Researchers at The University of New Mexico believe that Tumbleweeds may some day be a cash crop for farmers. Twelve different acids and oils have been identified in the plant, and through genetic engineering scientists hope to make it more efficient to create products from Tumbleweeds, such as citric acid, hyper-tension drugs, fiber for pills, vitamins, and food additives. Nothing would go to waste.
What else is the humble Tumbleweed good for? The book “Tumbleweed Gourmet, Cooking with Wild Southwestern Plants” is full of a few ideas, not to mention the many people who use it for festive decorations; including as holiday Christmas trees, or bundling them together and painted white to make snowmen. So, whether you are peering into the past via old movies or lore to find Tumbleweeds as a symbol of the West; or enjoying a glimpse of today to find the Tumbleweed as a quaint, yet active player in the modern world, there is one thing for sure: the Tumbleweed is a character, rolling, bouncing and tumbling across the landscape toward the future. Fun, funny, and useful, it is a character that it is definitely here to stay.
Tumbling Tumbleweeds
See them rolling around
Pledging their love to the ground
Here on the range I’ll be found
Drifting along with the Tumbling Tumbleweeds
See them rolling along
Pledging their love with a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the Tumbling Tumbleweeds
I know when day is done
That a new world awaits at dawn
See them rolling along
Pledging their love with a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the Tumbling Tumbleweeds
BREAK
I know when day is done
That a new world awaits at dawn
See them rolling along
Pledging their love with a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the Tumbling Tumbleweeds
Words and Music (C) Bob Nolan
