A closer look at poverty weed’s flowers

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Here’s a closer look at Baccharis neglecta‘s flowers, of which there was no poverty at McKinney Falls State Park on October 1. The whole bush was like this section, with flowers so dense that the aroma coming from them was hard to take.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman

Another arriviste

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Another native species that’s good at taking over disturbed ground is Baccharis neglecta, which came to be known as poverty weed because it sprang up on abandoned properties during the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression during the 1930s.

This bush or small tree is delicate and can often be seen bending in the breeze, as here, or even more severely, as in a post a year ago. In the background of today’s picture you’ll notice more patches of the dense bitterweed that predominated in yesterday’s photograph. Like that one, today’s dates from October 5 at a field on E. Oltorf St. in southeast Austin.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman