Texas toadflax in Bastrop

Click for better clarity.

Even in April of 2012, just half a year after the Bastrop County Complex Fire, I found wildflowers coming up again in their usual way. On March 4th of this year I returned for the first time since then, as you saw in the previous two posts. This latest trip was a month earlier in the spring, so there was less new growth than on the last visit, but among the burned ruins of the forest I still found wildflowers coming up. Shown here is one of them, Nuttallanthus texanus. People call it Texas toadflax—what it has to do with toads is anybody’s guess—but it grows in various places in the United States, not just Texas, as you can confirm on the state-clickable USDA map; it also grows in parts of Canada and Mexico.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman