Welcome back to Texas

Click for greater clarity.

Due mainly to the Northeast trip you’ve been seeing scenes from, it had been three-and-a-half weeks since I’d taken any pictures in Austin, but on July 13th I finally ventured out to see what I could see in my neighborhood. In particular, I went to the right-of-way beneath the power lines that has almost* always proved a supplier of native plants for me to photograph. And so it did, and so I did.

Only after I’d put my camera away and was almost back at my car did I catch sight of this little flower close to the ground: it’s a copper lily, Habranthus tubispathus, a species I don’t often see, but one no doubt called forth by the consecutive rainy days we’d been having.

The USDA’s map for the United States and Canada shows copper lilies in only a few southern states. Its Texas map doesn’t show it for Travis County, where I live, but this picture is proof that it’s here.

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* Because of the drastic mowing there late last fall, I had to put in the almost.

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© 2012 Steven Schwartzman