Taxodium mucronatum, commonly known as Montezuma bald cypress, Montezuma cypress, or ahuehuete, is a species of Taxodium that is primarily native to Mexico and Guatemala, with a few populations in the southwestern United States. Ahuehuete is derived from the Nahuatl name for the tree, āhuēhuētl, which means "upright drum in water" or "old man of the water."
The Sierra Madre Oriental is a mountain range in northeastern Mexico. The Sierra Madre Oriental is part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that form the western "backbone" of North America, Central America, South America, and Antarctica.
Hura crepitans, the sandbox tree, also known as possumwood, monkey no-climb, assacu and jabillo, is an evergreen tree in the family Euphorbiaceae, native to tropical regions of North and South America including the Amazon rainforest. It is also present in parts of Tanzania, where it is considered an invasive species. Because its fruits explode when ripe, it has also received the colloquial nickname the dynamite tree.
The World Birding Center is the official title given to a combined nine parks and nature preserves in the Rio Grande Valley region of Texas managed by a partnership of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the local communities in which the parks reside. The stated mission of the World Birding Center is to "protect native habitat while increasing the understanding and appreciation of the birds and wildlife", with an additional emphasis on promoting local economic development through ecotourism.
The Tamaulipan matorral is an ecoregion in the deserts and xeric shrublands biome on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental range in northeastern Mexico. It is a transitional ecoregion between the Tamaulipan mezquital and the Sierra Madre Oriental pine-oak forests to the west and the Veracruz moist forests to the south.
Esenbeckia is a genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. All species in the genus are native to the Americas, with the highest diversity in South America. They are commonly known as jopoy, the Mayan word for E. berlandieri, or gasparillo (Spanish).
Helietta is a genus of flowering plants in the citrus family, Rutaceae. Members of the genus are commonly known as barettas, barretas, or barrettas. The generic name honors French physician Louis Théodore Hélie (1802–1867).
The Tamaulipan mezquital is a deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregion in the Southern United States and northeastern Mexico. It covers an area of 141,500 km2 (54,600 sq mi), encompassing a portion of the Gulf Coastal Plain in southern Texas, northern Tamaulipas, northeastern Coahuila, and part of Nuevo León.
Zanthoxylum fagara or wild lime, is a species of flowering plant that—despite its name—is not part of the genus Citrus with real limes and other fruit, but is a close cousin in the larger citrus family, Rutaceae. It is more closely related to Sichuan pepper. It is native to southern Florida and Texas in the United States, and to Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America as far south as Paraguay. Common names include: lime prickly-ash, wild lime, colima, uña de gato, and corriosa.
Erythrostemon mexicanus, formerly Caesalpinia mexicana, is a species of plant in the genus Erythrostemon, within the pea family, Fabaceae. Common names include Mexican holdback, Mexican caesalpinia, and tabachín del monte. It is native to the extreme lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and to parts of Mexico: in the northeast and further south along the Gulf coast as well as the Pacific coast in Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, and a small portion of Sinaloa.
Guaiacum angustifolium is a species of flowering plant in the caltrop family, Zygophyllaceae. Common names include Texas guaiacum, Texas lignum-vitae, soapbush and huayacán. It is native to southern and western Texas in the United States and northern Mexico. The specific name is derived from the Latin angustus, meaning "narrow," and -folius, meaning "-leaved".
Zanthoxylum americanum, the common prickly-ash, common pricklyash, common prickly ash or northern prickly-ash, is an aromatic shrub or small tree native to central and eastern portions of the United States and Canada. It is the northernmost New World species in the citrus family, Rutaceae, and is the type species in its genus, which includes sichuan pepper. It can grow to 10 meters (33 ft) tall with a diameter at breast height (DBH) of 15 cm (5.9 in). It produces membranous leaflets and axillary flower clusters. The wood is not commercially valuable, but oil extracts from the bark have been used in traditional and alternative medicine, and have been studied for antifungal and cytotoxic properties. The genus name is sometimes spelled Xanthoxylum.
Cephalanthus salicifolius is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae. Common names include Mexican buttonbush, mimbre, botoncillo, and Jazmin blanco. Its native range extends from the banks of the southernmost stretch of the Rio Grande in Cameron and Hidalgo Counties of Texas through much of Mexico from Coahuila to Oaxaca; a disjunct population exists in Honduras.
Sabal mexicana is a species of palm tree that is native to far southern North America. Common names include Rio Grande palmetto, Mexican palmetto, Texas palmetto, Texas sabal palm, palmetto cabbage and palma de mícharos. The specific epithet, "mexicana", is Latin for "of Mexico."
Diospyros texana is a species of persimmon that is native to central, south and west Texas and southwest Oklahoma in the United States, and eastern Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas in northeastern Mexico. Common names include Texas persimmon, Mexican persimmon and the more ambiguous "black persimmon". It is known in Spanish as chapote, chapote manzano, or chapote prieto, all of which are derived from the Nahuatl word tzapotl. That word also refers to several other fruit-bearing trees.
Citharexylum berlandieri is a species of flowering plant in the verbena family, Verbenaceae, that is native to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the United States and Mexico as far south as Oaxaca. Common names include Tamaulipan fiddlewood, Berlandier fiddlewood, negrito fiddlewood, negrito, and orcajuela. It is a shrub or small tree, reaching a height of 6 m (20 ft). The type specimen of this species was collected from the hills near Las Canoas, San Luis Potosí by Cyrus Pringle in 1890. It was described as a new species the following year by Benjamin Lincoln Robinson, who chose the specific epithet to honour French naturalist Jean-Louis Berlandier.
Salvia ballotiflora is a species of flowering plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae, that is native to Texas in the United States as well as northeastern and central Mexico. Common names include shrubby blue sage and mejorana.
Ayenia limitaris is a rare North American species of flowering plant in the mallow family known by the common names Rio Grande ayenia, Texas ayenia, and Tamaulipan kidneypetal. It is native to an area straddling the Rio Grande in Mexico and the United States. Today it is known from far southern Texas and far northern sections of the Mexican states of Coahuila and Tamaulipas. It has become rare because most of its habitat has been degraded or destroyed. There are perhaps four populations remaining in Texas and two in Mexico, for a total of 1000 individual plants at most. It is a federally listed endangered species of the United States.
Agave longiflora is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae that is native to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the United States and northern Tamaulipas in Mexico. Common names include amole de río, longflower tuberose, and Runyon's huaco. The type specimens were sent by botanist and photographer Robert Runyon (1881–1968) to the New York Botanical Garden in 1921. Consequently, the species was initially placed in a monotypic genus named in his honour, Runyonia, by Joseph Nelson Rose. The species has been placed in the genus Manfreda, now absorbed into Agave. A. longiflora is a rhizomatous perennial with 3–7 prostrate leaves in a basal rosette. It inhabits hills, terraces and slopes in the semi-arid Tamaulipan mezquital.
Robert Runyon was an American photographer, botanist, and politician who served as the mayor of Brownsville, Texas from 1941 to 1943.
