SWIM's cousin's neighbor lives in southern Calif, and once made these comments at a cocktail party:
1. datura growing wild everywhere....you get to know where it grows, it's a WEED! ... along bike paths and creeks especially...vacant industrial lots..... even right next to a well-known pro sports stadium.
2. How about a WONDERFUL stand of San Pedro on a well-known Los Angeles surface street in front of a well-known bank known for starry sightings...hey, didn't those vanity plates read "MR BIG"? (note: SWIM's cousin's neighbor did not see MR BIG peforming unnecessary landscaping there).
3. plenty of Trichs in the front yards - both cities and suburbs - that were built up in the 50's and 60's...in fact, these are far superior genetic specimins than Home Depot's predominant cultivator. Sometimes they're growing over fences and overhanging the sidewalks. Knock on owner's door and offer to buy a limb or two....
4. Vacant commercial lots with untended landscaping for the last few years are good hunting grounds for abandoned cactus. Especially those close to neighborhoods built in the 50's and 60's. Plenty of those in LA and San Diego right now.
5. Ignored canyons and gullies to steep too be built on - often property of the city - sometimes have large stands of cactus. SWIM's cousin's neighbor once investigated such a stand --- several truly massive bunches of a "very healthy" T. pachanoi with over 20' limbs that had taken over a section of such a gully from top to bottom. One would feel as if in a deep jungle walking through this stand, and fallen limbs would be sprouting all around you. Evidently, one particular stand descended from plants originally planted by owners of the original Spanish land grants. Since T. pachanoi is well known for its antibiotic propeties in that culutre, that idea does make sense.
6. Where urban streams and rivers have not been channelized, there is a very good chance of running into stands of Phalaris- canary grass. The San _____ River is a good example, behind some of the malls.
