A Mexican plum tree stopped me in my tracks on the last Wednesday of February. I had been minding my own business, walking down the Dante Trail from the lower Purgatory Creek Trailhead, when a sweet perfume assaulted me. The fragrance snapped my head back, and as I followed my nostrils around, I beheld tiny white flowers unabashedly dancing in the wind.
Horror quickly replaced delight as I contemplated this springtime occurrence. Surely this plum was misguided. Surely this wasn’t the end of winter. Surely this wasn’t a harbinger of what is coming to feel like perpetual summer. But alas, friends, it was. Spring has sprung, and my wife has already put our tomatoes in the ground (unfathomable to a guy who grew up with a frost date of May 13).
Yet I cannot lament for long because my favorite fragrance is upon us. I love agarita season. For most of the year, these poky little shrubs serve mainly to keep me from straying too far from the trail; however, for a few weeks, early every spring, they turn the Swallet Trail at the River Recharge Natural Area into a tunnel of olfactory delight.
Known as Texas Holly or Chapparal Berry, these plants abound on our local trails, and right this moment they are aflame with tiny yellow flowers in clusters of three. I’ve only ever enjoyed the smell, but herb lore says the roots are used to treat stomach aches and to dress wounds. I also hear the berries burst with a sweet-tart flavor that many Texans use in jams or even pies. Speaking of edible nature, it is also Redbud season.
My daughter loves to shock city folk by running up to Redbud trees planted in urban areas and devouring the delicate pink petals as if they were candies off a cake. Redbuds are part of the pea family, and many of their parts are indeed edible. Our family likes to gobble up the flowers fresh off the branches. I’ve always thought they had a citrusy tartness to them, and it turns out that they are high in vitamin C. I have also heard tell that the buds can be pickled as a substitute for capers, which has given me a great idea for a different kind of pasta primavera.
So whether you love the grape Kool-Aid smell of Mountain Laurel, the honey-sweet aroma of agaritta, or the sweet-tart taste of Redbud, you’ll find a delight to your senses on the trails of San Marcos. Get out there while you can, San Martians…summer is coming.
