What if a much of a which of a wind…*

Baccharis neglecta; click for greater detail.

I mentioned last time that Baccharis neglecta is willowy, and in fact one of the names by which people knew it before they contemptuously started calling it poverty weed and Depression weed and New Deal weed was false willow. Because its branches are so pliable, Baccharis neglecta can often be seen blowing in the wind, and that’s how I saw this one on the Blackland Prairie in northeast Austin on the breezy afternoon of October 25. It’s winds like these that disperse the seed-bearing fluff that makes the plants so attractive at this stage. I used a high shutter speed of 1/640 sec. to record a predominantly horizontal view of a young tree that sprang back to being mostly vertical whenever there was a lull in the prairie wind.

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* For the source of the title, click here.

© 2011 Steven Schwartzman