Thistle might change its name to fissile

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It was on the even cloudier morning of May 1, along the aptly named Floral Park Dr. that leads into my immediate neighborhood, when I finally went over to photograph a Texas thistle, Cirsium texanum, that I’d been noticing for a couple of days as I drove past. By the time I visited it, the plant was beginning to fade: as this post’s title notes, the flowers of the Texas thistle don’t stay fresh for long, but soon split apart so their seeds can be scattered along the ground and into the wind.

For those of you who are interested in my approach to nature photography, points 1, 3, 8, and especially 16 in About My Techniques are relevant to this photograph.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman

One last day with the Texas thistle

The last few posts have brought you pictures of the Texas thistle, Cirsium texanum, which is among my favorite native wildflowers (I know, I seem to say that about most of them). I’ll let today be the last day—for the time being—that we with this species before moving on to others, of which there are so many.

This photograph brings back not only the caterpillarness of It isn’t easy being green but also the date and place of that picture: the cloudy morning of April 26 at Tejas Camp in Williamson County. What the dark areas on this tan caterpillar are, I don’t know, but they look ominous and probably don’t bode well for the bus they’re riding on. I’ve seen the darkened remains of many caterpillars this season, presumably the work of predators that lay their eggs on or inside the hapless larvae.

There’s only a vague resemblance in this picture, but my perfervid imagination keeps conjuring up an image of the Seattle Space Needle, which as far as I know has never been climbed by a caterpillar the size of King Kong.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman