Mistaken beauty

Even though I'm a Master Gardener, I still have to remind myself that I became certified in the Southwest-- a place my east-coast root's still grasps to understand. The culture, the adobe buildings, the wildlife...just about everything I see in this high desert is incredibly exotic, and I find myself playing the "what is that called?" game, in particular with the flora. I test myself when no one is around, trying to identify each native plant and flower variety I stumble across. I surprise myself sometimes at the vast botanical knowledge I have gained here in just 3 years, and then there are those occasions when I am sorely mistaken.

                                                                   Plant in question...

Take this golden beauty pictured above, for example. While my friend was moving from Santa Fe, NM to Pojoaque, NM last week, I was thrilled to spot what I thought was the first forsythia, surreptitiously spilling out of a cracked adobe wall. I snapped its image, looking forward to sharing it with all my winter weary readers who would surely become excited at the thought that spring was closer than any of us thought. Just as I posted the image, something didn't feel quite right. While everyone commented on it's beauty, I was second guessing it... was it really a forsythia? For starters, forsythia stems are woody, this plant clearly has green stems. Then, there was the flowers, these six petal blossoms were perfect, but didn't forsythia have four petal blooms?

Winter jasmine, close up

I was right to doubt and do a little sleuthing, and after an hour scouring the web for "plants that look like forsythia," I finally stumbled across a similar image that said in small italics, 'winter jasmine.'

Forsythia, close up

Winter jasmine? I had never heard of it (to my embarrassment). After reading up on it, there are some similarities to forsythia; it grows in zones 6-10 (Santa Fe is 6b), but this plant is in the jasmine family not the olive, and blooms before forsythia, that is a month or two before. Like forsythia, winter jasmine can grow tall and wild, but unlike the free-standing forsythia, this hearty jasmine likes to be supported by things like walls and arbors. It isn't fragrant like regular jasmine, but it certainly captures your attention with its diminutive sweet flowers.

Regardless of the mix up, I am glad I trusted my instincts and questioned my authority (something I highly recommend). Yes, even Master Gardener's can be wrong. When in doubt... Wikipedia.

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Bountiful winter jasmine