The Pecos Sunflower

The summers of my childhood and adolescence were littered by these brilliant, merry, flowers. I remember the sunflower studded drives along the Turquoise Trail, hopping in the car and driving the 313 to Bernalillo, just for a glance of a golden field of sunflowers. When I was younger, the Pecos Sunflower grew like weeds, popping up unwanted in manicured lawns and between the rocks of xeriscaped yards. They grew along the freeway, in the between the cement cracks of drainage ditches; they grew everywhere. From August to October, my region was gifted with these gorgeous lemon blossomed plants

The Pecos Sunflower is slightly different than the sunflowers you may be familiar with. Its blooms tend to linger until late fall (much later than your typical sunflower), and the head diameter is smaller. These sunflowers are only found in New Mexico and parts of Texas and Utah. I always admired the flowers’ resiliency. Taking root in the desert is not any easy life for a flower.

I hardly noticed that they were declining in number, drastically. One summer, a little more than half a decade ago I realized that errant field of flowers along Highway 313 no longer existed. I suddenly recalled that I no longer saw them trespassing on people’s lawns. An entire summer had passed and I had only seen a handful of these floral beauties. This is when I learned that these marvelous flowers were endangered. They were being snuffed out by declining habitats and invasive species of plants stealing their water supply. Shortly after this discovery, I left my hometown and moved across the country. When I was feeling nostalgic or homesick, I would think back on my beloved sunflowers. My few visits home showed no real improvement for the future of the Pecos Sunflower.

Having recently moved back to my hometown, I grew excited to catch a glimpse of my old floral friends, although I didn’t get my hopes up, expecting their numbers had likely only gone down further since I had left. It’s August here in the desert, a beautiful period of the year on the tail end of monsoon season. Anxious to get out and enjoy a bit of summer’s last act, my family and I got in the car and took a lovely cruise along Highway 313 and up the backside of the Sandia Mountains. It was not long before we spied clumps of the Pecos Sunflower growing in the arroyos along the 313. The mountain was rampant with these beauties. It was like I had travelled back in time; the sunflowers were thriving.

I know that certain groups, like the Save Our Bosque Task Force, and many individuals have taken efforts to replenish the population of Pecos Sunflower. I have endless gratitude for those who are preserving the natural beauty of my childhood home. I moved back to Albuquerque after starting a family for many different reasons, but one of those was certainly my desire to share with my son all of the things that I held dear about this unique landscape. Now I know that he, like me, will have a childhood engulfed in beauty and littered with these one of a kind sunflowers.