Pearl Burns turned 90 on September 7, 2012. I was privileged to attend her birthday celebration in Albuquerque. Her family had created a room filled with memories of her life, catagorized by each decade beginning in 1922. Family photos and cultural icons marked the nine decades of her life. Pearl was trained as a nurse. Pearl raised a family in Albuquerque. She continued her nursing career at Presbyterian Hospital. Always an active outdoors woman, she hiked with a group of women that called themselves The Meadow Muffins and The Happy Hoofers. She climbed
Fourteeners in Colorado into the new millenium. Pearl is our celebrated champion of New Mexico wildflowers here in
Central New Mexico. She has
co-authored books on the wildflowers of the Sandia Mountains. She began leading
Wildflower Walks in the Sandia Mountains as a volunteer guide for the
USDA's Forest Service. She's responsible for keeping us looking at the ground each spring and summer as we walk along New Mexico trails and highways. Visitors to our wildlands call out: "What is THAT flower?" "Look at the color!" "Oooooh, smell that aroma. " Pearl's voice can be heard: "Careful where you step...that's a Northern Rock Jasmine." "Look at the involucre to tell the difference between an aster and a daisy." "Please, don't pick wildflowers or we will not enjoy them next season!"
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Pearl on the South Crest Trail where a sign honors her |
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Pearl explaining how Lambert's Locoweed differs from Milkvetch |
Pearl has been leading wildflower walks for four decades in the Albuquerque foothills, and in the
Manzanita and
Sandia Mountains to the east of Albuquerque. In 2009, she trained several of us to be Interpretive Guides for the
Forest Service summer walks in the Sandia Mountains. Her love of wildflowers, her local wildlands knowledge along with her training as a biologist at
UNM (after a career as a Nurse) has been invaluable to so many volunteers in
Friends of the Sandia Mountains and other visitors to our New Mexico wilderness areas. She still can out-hike me. Her last Wildflower Walk for this year was on a hot morning August 25, 2012 along
Juan Tomas Rd. just north of NM Hwy 337 in the Manzanita Mountains just southeast of Tijeras. Here are some photos from that wildflower walk and some of the flowers found here:
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Pearl explains to visitors what grows here |
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Rough Menora |
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Many-flowered Gilia |
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Sanvitalia |
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Apache Plume |
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Purple Aster |
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Horsetail |
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Pearl points out Foothills Paintbrush |
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Birdbeak |
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Cutleaf Germander |
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Dotted Gayfeather |
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Dotted Gayfeather |
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Woodsorrel |
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Crest-rib Morning Glory |
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Fringed Sage |
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Bindweed |
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Ground Cherry (flower) |
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Ground Cherry (fruit) |
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Curly-top Gumweed |
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Milkwort |
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Narrow-leaved Four O'Clock |
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Rocky Mountain Sage |
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Short-rayed Coneflower |
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White Heath Aster |
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Hairy Golden Aster |
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Wild Licorice |
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White Prairie Clover |
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Woolly Mullein (first year) |
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Toothed Poinsettia |
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Small-flowered Guara |
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Showy Golden-eye (left) and Snakeweed (right) |
Thank you, Pearl, for sharing the beautiful world of wildflowers with so many others who walk these trails!
Such delicate looking flowers and yet they grow in such harsh conditions. People should be more like that.
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