Something pointy in Texas that doesn’t puncture your skin

At last, and especially in contrast to yesterday’s picture, here’s a Texas plant that looks menacing, that in fact looks like a bunch of hypodermic needles just waiting to break through your skin, and yet miraculously the would-be needles are pliable and don’t hurt at all (unlike the spines of the white prickly poppy, which are real, and which I can tell you do hurt). These intriguing and happily harmless flowers are Onosmodium bejariense, called false gromwell or marbleseed. I photographed them in McKinney Falls State Park in southeast Austin on April 5.

I was surprised to find from the USDA map that this species grows in most American states and Canadian provinces.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman