Remains of a Mexican hat colony

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Even while spring is beginning to make its presence felt in Austin, as you saw from the last two posts and earlier ones of agarita buds and elbowbush flowers, the dried-out remains of last year’s plants still predominate. Here’s what was left of a colony of Mexican hats, Ratibida columnifera, on an embankment in Great Hills Park on February 5th. Some of you may recall seeing a closeup of one of these seed head remains early last November; it was just a few feet away from where I saw this sight. If you’d like to compare the dry colony to its former fresh and flowering self, you can check out a photograph taken last June a little further down the same embankment on another day of wispy clouds.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman