TexasEscapes.com  
HOME : : NEW : : TEXAS TOWNS : : GHOST TOWNS : : TEXAS HOTELS : : FEATURES : : COLUMNS : : BUILDINGS : : IMAGES : : ARCHIVE : : SITE MAP
PEOPLE : : PLACES : : THINGS : : HOTELS : : VACATION PACKAGES
Texas Escapes
Online Magazine
Texas | Columns | "Texas Tales"

The Maligned Mesquite
Gets Some Respect
Or
The Rodney Dangerfield of Texas Trees

by Mike Cox
Mike Cox

When looking at a gnarly, thorny, water-sucking mesquite tree makes your mouth water, you know you’re hungry. Real hungry.

In 1841, after the 320 men of the Texas-Santa Fe Expedition had gone through all their provisions, the beans that grow on the tree that covers much of Texas started looking like “manna from heaven.” Expedition chronicler George W. Kendall wrote a few years later that, “When our provisions and coffee ran out, the men ate them [the mesquite beans] in immense quantities, and roasted or boiled them.”

Like most writers, J. Frank Dobie had ideas for more books than he ever got around to writing. One book he wanted to write, or see someone else write, was on mesquite.

Dobie doubtless would be pleased that someone finally gotten around to such a book. “The Magnificent Mesquite,” a general overview of this interesting, useful, yet problematic tree, came out in 2000 from the University of Texas Press. The author is Ken E. Rogers, a Texas Forest Service wood technologist at Texas A&M University.

The mesquite is a Texas icon, as much of a Texas symbol as bluebonnets or longhorns. The thorny tree covers some 56 million acres in Texas. Even though Texas has the largest mesquite acreage in North America, the tree also is found in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California and even Hawaii. (A Catholic priest grew the big island’s first mesquite from a seed he brought across the Pacific from Paris in 1828.)

What will surprise many is that the tree is not particular to South and North America. It and its several varieties are found in India, Africa, and Australia.

The mesquite has been useful to animals and humans for millennia. It provided food and shelter to aboriginal cultures and it still offers food and cover for wildlife as well as livestock.

While mesquite beans and the flour they can produce are not a staple today, in an indirect way, the tree still feeds humans. Its wood is a favorite for barbecuing and its leaves and beans give us honey, syrup and jelly.

Beyond that, mesquite is the second hardest wood. Because of that, it’s not easy to work with, but items made from it, ranging from dominos to furniture to art, are beautiful and enduring.

The tree’s extensive propagation has led to erosion, depleted water tables and the crowding out of other vegetation. But mesquite enriches the soil in which it grows, and if managed properly, it can be more beneficial than harmful.

Even so, most ranchers have little use for the plant, which is technically a legume. Legendary rancher W.T. Waggoner, who famously fussed when oil was discovered on his North Texas property that he’d rather have water than oil, also weighed in on water-sucking mesquite.

“[Mesquite is] the devil with roots. It scabs my cows, spooks my horses, and gives little shade,” he spat.

Though Dobie never produced a book on mesquite, he did write several articles on the tree.

In one of those pieces, published by Arizona Highways in 1941, Dobie demonstrated his reverence for the mesquite. While many viewed mesquites as despoilers of good land, Dobie saw the tree “as graceful and lovely as any tree in the world.”

He continued: “When, in the spring, trees and bushes put on their delicately green, transparent leaves and the mild sun shines upon them, they are more beautiful than any peach orchard. The green seems to float through the young sunlight into the sky. The mesquite itself is a poem. The writer-folklorist even said he wouldn’t mind being buried beneath a mesquite.

“I could ask for no better monument…than a good mesquite tree,” he wrote, “its roots down deep like those of people who belong to the soil, its hardy branches, leaves and fruit holding memories of the soil….”

© Mike Cox - May 8, 2014 column
More "Texas Tales"
See
Texas Historic Trees


Related Topics:
People
Columns
Texas Town List
Texas

Order
Books by Mike Cox
Related Topics:
Columns | People | Texas Town List | Texas
Custom Search
TEXAS ESCAPES CONTENTS
HOME | TEXAS ESCAPES ONLINE MAGAZINE | HOTELS | SEARCH SITE
TEXAS TOWN LIST | TEXAS GHOST TOWNS | TEXAS COUNTIES

Texas Hill Country | East Texas | Central Texas North | Central Texas South | West Texas | Texas Panhandle | South Texas | Texas Gulf Coast
TRIPS | STATES PARKS | RIVERS | LAKES | DRIVES | FORTS | MAPS

Texas Attractions
TEXAS FEATURES
People | Ghosts | Historic Trees | Cemeteries | Small Town Sagas | WWII | History | Texas Centennial | Black History | Art | Music | Animals | Books | Food
COLUMNS : History, Humor, Topical and Opinion

TEXAS ARCHITECTURE | IMAGES
Courthouses | Jails | Churches | Gas Stations | Schoolhouses | Bridges | Theaters | Monuments/Statues | Depots | Water Towers | Post Offices | Grain Elevators | Lodges | Museums | Rooms with a Past | Gargoyles | Cornerstones | Pitted Dates | Stores | Banks | Drive-by Architecture | Signs | Ghost Signs | Old Neon | Murals | Then & Now
Vintage Photos

TRAVEL RESERVATIONS | USA | MEXICO

Privacy Statement | Disclaimer | Contributors | Staff | Contact TE
Website Content Copyright Texas Escapes. All Rights Reserved