Back on the Possumhaw Trail

In January of 2010, native plant aficionado Agnes Plutino told me that when she’d recently traveled Texas Highway 29 in Burnet County, she’d noticed lots of possumhaw trees, Ilex decidua, laden with fruit on both sides of the road. I quickly acted on her tip, drove that route on January 21, 2010, and stopped probably ten times to take possumhaw photographs between the towns of Bertram and Burnet, about an hour to the northwest of Austin.

Two days short of three years later, on a sunny January 19, 2013, I went back out along what I’ve come to think of as the Possumhaw Trail, even if no one else calls that stretch of highway by that name. I ended up taking my time and pictures in three places on the north side of the road, including this one, which was made dramatic by the bare white tree behind the swathe of dense possumhaw fruit as well as by the blue sky and cirrus clouds above.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman