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Consider the lowly creosote bush.

The underappreciated native plant, which smells a bit like a telephone pole in the rain, could teach Albuquerque a lot about how to flourish for a long time in the desert. It is one tough customer.

For example, a creosote bush dubbed "King Clone," in the Mojave Desert near Los Angeles, is arguably the world's oldest living thing, at age 12,000. In 1962, at Yucca Flat, Nev., the feds detonated a thermonuclear bomb, apparently killing all nearby vegetation. Ten years later, a scientist found 20 of the original 21 creosote bushes nuked had resprouted.

Individuals, clans or cities who identify with plants or animals practice a kind of totemistic thinking. Unfortunately, we in Western civilization don't do this anymore - not seriously. We consider primitive the idea that Homo sapiens is physically and spiritually related to other species, despite that we hold much DNA in common. We deny that our nonhuman cousins can instruct us, if we respect and listen to them.

So forgive me if I don't make the creosote connection clearly. In any case: First, the creosote bush is at Albuquerque's doorstep and soon will live here, as the climate warms. It likes weather hotter than ours: It's all over the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico. But lately, it has crept as far north as Los Lunas.

Creosote, I've learned from biologists and their research, is one of the most successful desert species, because it uses several smart strategies to survive.

It has two root systems. One taps deep into the ground - as do Albuquerque's wells. The other radiates close to the surface to suck up water from even minuscule rains. Albuquerque's plans to use surface water delivered by the Rio Grande are sort of analogous - but the city still doesn't make use of its infrequent rains, shunting most of them away in flood-control ditches.

Creosote has tiny, waxy leaves, coated with resin, whose stomata close in the day and open at night, and resinous roots - all of which help it retain water. Albuquerque still loses rivers of water to evaporation, by watering thirsty grasses in the sun.

Albuquerque is growing relentlessly. Creosote, too, can grow quickly - a whopping 2 inches on a half-inch of rain. But it also contains a growth-inhibitor that puts the brakes on expansion - even during a rainy period - in anticipation of the next drought. During drought, it can slow its photosynthesis dramatically, allow its lower leaves to die off and, ultimately, put its remaining leaves to sleep. Its seeds can survive for years without water. Albuquerque is doing some modest water conservation, but it doesn't yet know how to contract in size without dying.

Creosote, selfishly, uses a mix of toxic chemicals and dead zones it creates by consuming all available moisture to defend against intruders who would eat it or vamp its water. Albuquerque hasn't yet found a good way to fend off its thirsty suburbs.

Many species, including Homo sapiens, consider creosote and Albuquerque ugly and stinky and, hence, avoid them. But many desert fans find yellow-blossomed creosote lovely and its scent a perfume.

Should Albuquerque purposely adopt a weedy, pungent facade - which, to an embarrassing extent, it already does - to avoid being overrun? Should we embrace the totem and become Creosote City? I'm not sure about this last one. I'd like to consider it carefully, with Cousin Creosote.