I’ve noticed that a couple of oddities with regard to sandy / sandy loam soils. In the Las Cruces District, sometimes a sandy loam will have a flora that is more indicative of loamy or clayey sites. These are also generally not “fluffy” soils, but relatively compact. Further north, recently in Socorro County but especially prominent on the Colorado Plateau, there are very “fluffy” soils that often have psammophilic plants on them. I think these soils will generally come out as sandy loams, but I have not often textured them or learned the texture from others. If they are sandy loams, and have psammophilic plants on them, that may not be a mystery, but the “fluffiness” is. In apparent surface texture as one walks through these areas, they have nothing to do with the sandy soils to the south. I wonder if sand size is an important factor here; the finer sands border on silt, so perhaps act like silt in terms of walking-apparent soil texture but like sands as far as many of the plants are concerned. Particularly coarse sands, perhaps, could explain the sandy loams without psammophiles. Or perhaps there is a clay percentage above which the soil will still fall into the sandy loam category, but cease to act much like one as far as plants are concerned. Parent material likely plays some role here, as the “fluffy” soils are in predominately sedimentary areas and the troubling sandy loams in southern New Mexico are in predominately igneous areas.