Still stately: a follow-up

Most of you who read these pages have blogs of your own, and I have to assume there’s a lot of variety in the ways you approach them. I’ve found that I often start a post, revise it on and off over several days, and when it’s done (or when it’s done me in) I schedule it to be published. While that process is going on, life continues, of course, and new pictures from nature sometimes delay the appearance of posts I’ve worked on, even to the point that in some cases I give up the older ones altogether.

On December 26 (thank you, WordPress, for keeping track of every revision) I began working on the post that appeared right before this one. Twice in the time between starting that one and publishing it I found a stray Maximilian sunflower plant, still unexpectedly green, struggling to put out new flowers more than a month beyond the usual end of the species’ bloom season. Here then, in contrast to the larger view of the thoroughly dried-out Maximilian sunflower plant in the previous post, you see a close-up of one that not only was still alive but was even managing to display rays of bright yellow on January 3. It may not be as attractive as a Maximilian sunflower can be, but I was impressed by the fact that it existed at all in January. You may take it as an emblem of persistence if you wish.

Today’s picture comes from the margin of land surrounding Riata Trace Pond in northwest Austin. For more information about Helianthus maximiliani, including a state-clickable map showing the many places in the United States and Canada where the species grows, you can go to the USDA website.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman