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This year the annual State Meeting will be held in that sparkling city by the sea, Corpus Christi. In an area known to some as the Texas Riviera, Corpus Christi has to be one of the nicest of Texas’ mid-sized cities.
Although our focus is on attending the meeting, seeing old friends, and enjoying the programs and field trips, don’t forget that getting there is half the fun. Allow yourself enough time to make a couple of stops on the way.
Folks coming in from the eastern part of the state might be interested in some historic and champion trees. To see a beautiful Anaqua (Ehretia anacua), make a call on the Mission in Refugio. Anaquas are semi-evergreen trees with dark green sandpapery-surfaced leaves and orange berries attractive to birds—so much so that early German settlers named it Vogelbeerenbaum, or Birdberry Tree. This particular specimen in Refugio was once designated national champion due to the sum of its dimensions, but now that honor is held by a lesser tree in San Antonio. Nevertheless the Mission Anaqua still has historic value as the site where Sam Houston made his plea to stop the ill-fated Goliad expedition.
If you have never been to Goose Island State Park, just east of Rockport, stop by and pay homage to the state champion Live Oak (Quercus virginiana). Although it is not exceptionally tall, this venerable specimen is acknowledged as being one of the largest overall and oldest trees in Texas. Over the years the wind has forced the spreading limbs and branches into gnarling shapes that you can imagine having served as an eerie backdrop for ancient pagan rituals.
Those arriving via Interstate 37 can poke around Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi. The state park areas of Choke Canyon are rather uninteresting vegetationally, but on the northwest and southwest corners of the reservoir are some boat ramp areas with a few unofficial trails. These inroads into the brush offer good glimpses of South Texas plains vegetation, complete with Mormon Tea (Ephedra sp.), Guayacan (Guaiacum angustifolium), and Coma (Sideroxylon celastrinum). The area around Lake Corpus Christi is where Pat McNeal of Native Texas Nursery recently discovered a new addition to Texas flora, Manihot subciliata.
In the city of Corpus, be sure to pay a visit to the Corpus Christi Museum of Science & History. This is one of the finest museums of its size in the state. Not only are the exhibits well worth the time, but it is one of the few city facilities that have shown the pluck to plant mesquite as an effective landscape tree.
Of course the vegetational jewel of the city is the South Texas Botanical Gardens & Nature Center, which has overcome a number of serious difficulties since its inception and is now on its feet in a big way. Additional property has been acquired adjacent to the original site with vegetation representative of the region, and the devoted staff maintains some nice plantings around the visitors’ center.
To tour the grounds take the self-guided nature trail, a one-mile loop meandering through native flora, with numbered stations identifying interesting plants of the area. A guidebook with line drawings and text interprets the plant and animal wildlife to be found along the trail. Texas Ebony, Colima, Aragosa and Nipple Cactus are some of the plants seldom found north of this area. The South Texas Botanical Gardens & Nature Center also grows two of the area’s endangered plant species: the Slender Rushpea (Hoffmannseggii tenella) and the Black Lace Cactus (Echinocereus reichenbachii var fitchii).
Since we’re in Corpus Christi we may as well go to the beach. In the sand dunes, look for the Goat’s Foot Creeper (Ipomoea pes-caprae). Along the edges of tidal pools there are the succulents Glasswort (Salicornia depressa) and Saltwort (Batis maritima). The thick leaves of Glasswort can be eaten raw, and with some imagination, the taste is reminiscent of salty cucumbers.
There are many other things to see and do in the Corpus Christi area—it is a birder’s paradise, and of course few activities are as soothing as walking the Gulf beaches with the gentle surf rolling in.
Note: This story originally appeared in the May 1994 issue of our newsletter. Some scientific names and place names have been updated. Manihot subciliata is not a recognized species.
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**ARCHIVED POST AUTHOR: paulcox
