Camphorweed continues

Camphorweed bud and flower head; click for greater detail.

On the morning of December 22, the first fully clear day after at least two weeks of mostly gray skies, I wandered southeast across town to the prairie reconstruction at Austin’s former Mueller Airport to see if I could find any wildflowers, and find some I did. The first thing that caught my attention was dozens of flowers of a plant that appeared several times in the early days of this blog in July: camphorweed, Heterotheca subaxillaris. This species is known to bloom in Austin from the spring through the fall, so a late-December find wasn’t all that rare. Unusual or not, the bright yellow was a welcome sight: in the foreground you see an opening bud, with its characteristic red-tipped bracts, and behind it a fully open flower head.

You can visit the USDA website for more information about Heterotheca subaxillaris, including a state-clickable map showing the many places in the United States where the species grows.

© 2011 Steven Schwartzman