Mostly monochrome

Marsh fleabane colony gone to seed; click for greater detail.

Although I’ve still been finding a few wildflowers in Austin in the second week of December, it’s true that on the whole the landscape dulls down toward the end of the year, as you in cooler climes get to observe sooner than we do down here in central Texas. One example of that desaturation is this colony of Pluchea odorata, marsh fleabane. (If you’d like a reminder of how different these water-loving wildflowers look in the springtime of their lives, if not of the year, the post of September 10 will do the trick.) I took this picture on November 23 at a pond that’s hidden away in a hollow of my hilly neighborhood in northwest Austin. During the drought these plants sprang up on damp ground that had once been below the water of the pond, and then the little bit of rain that we finally had in the fall brought the water level back up to the point you see here. Because this picture has such a limited color range, it reminds me of an old sepia-toned black and white photograph.

For more about Pluchea odorata, including a state-clickable map showing the many places in North America where this species grows, you can visit the USDA website.

© 2011 Steven Schwartzman