Is mesquite a pioneer plant?

[Guest guest]

> I'm told that mesquite is also a pioneer plant.

Hi Darrell:

On page 99 of VolumeII of " The Albrecht Papers " there are two

photographs of the same field in a valley in the Santa Rita

Mountains. The upper photograph, taken in 1903, showed " ...an

ecological climax of nutritious grass... " . The lower, taken forty

years later, shows scattered trees of the leguminous mesquite

surviviing there. The removal of soil fertility by grazing cattle

had made the soil so poor it would no longer support cattle.

In this case, the mesquite was not a pioneer plant that came in to

make better soil (if it can), but rather a secondary plant that came

in after the removal of soil fertility. Pioneers go first, not

second.

Chi