Huisache; Sweet Acacia (Acacia farnesiana ).

"A twelve - foot tree; thorny; dark - brown bark; pliant branches swaying with the gulf breeze; habitat rich moist soil."

Humm .. I guess that inlcudes Brackettville, Texas and San Antonio and El Paso, too? ¡Guau! Wow!

"The trees, early to bloom, make the waysides a bower of beauty and fill the air with fragrance.

"The wood is used for fence posts and the trees as ornamentals.

"The Huisache is cultivated in France for the manufacture of perfume.

"World War II caused the cancelling of a plan for a Valley perfumery.

"Huisache from Nahuatl, Hui, brier + zachin, tree; farnesiana, the saccharine or sugar gum of the tree when it is fermented; Acacia, Greek, akakia, point or thorn."

Even now, and since 2001, I've tried to remember to send some Huisache blossoms every year to Western New York State and to Houston.

Adapted from:

The Garden of Chaparral, Plants of the Lower Rio Grande Valley

By: Elizabeth M. Riess. New York: Vantage Press, 1958.