Cedar sage when there shouldn’t have been any

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On October 27th, as Eve and I were walking in the Bull Creek Preserve, she pointed out some fresh leaves of cedar sage, Salvia roemeriana. In Austin this perennial normally blooms in the spring, or occasionally into the early summer, but as we kept walking we saw more and more plants, and soon even some that were putting out flowers. I’ve never seen cedar sage flowers at the end of October, which is supposed to be at least three months too late, but there they were. How many times have I reported that 2012 has been a strange year? Now I’m saying it again. While I’m at it, I might as well point out that today’s post marks yet another species début for this blog, which has had many in 2012.

In the United States this species is found only in Texas, and then only in a band of counties stretching from Brewster in the Trans-Pecos to Bell at the eastern edge of central Texas.

For those of you who are interested in photography as a craft, points 1, 2 and 4 in About My Techniques are relevant to this photograph. In particular, the dark background is due to the shaded portions of some Ashe juniper trees, known locally as cedars, beneath or close to which the appropriately named cedar sage likes to grow.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman