Purple bindweed flower on the wane

Click for greater clarity.

Two posts ago you saw three fresh flowers of purple bindweed, a species that as a dutiful member of the morning-glory family usually opens its flowers in the morning and lets them wither in the heat of the afternoon. The puckering shown here, a version of which you saw from the side late last year, is typical of that fading away. This view goes back to June 21 of 2011, a year in which, despite the horrendous drought, I found purple bindweed thriving in many places in central Texas, as if there were no drought at all.

For more information about Ipomoea cordatotriloba, including a state-clickable map showing where in the southeastern United States it grows, you can visit the USDA website. For those of you interested in photography as a craft, points 1, 3, 7 and 8 in About My Techniques are relevant to this photograph.

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Posted on today’s date in 2011: a pretty little syrphid fly on a camphorweed flower head.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman