Fringed puccoon in Bastrop
Click for greater clarity.
An even brighter wildflower that I found coming up on March 4th, a year and a half after the Bastrop County Complex Fire of 2011, was fringed puccoon, Lithospermum incisum. Here’s a partly shadowy view of it, with plenty of symbolic black in the lower portion of the photograph.
© 2013 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
out of the ashes, the phoenix flies!
what a lovely image to represent hope!
z
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
March 23, 2013 at 7:40 AM
The Phoenix: an apt reference.
Steve Schwartzman
March 23, 2013 at 8:45 AM
Lovely image, thanks MJ
mjspringett
March 23, 2013 at 7:55 AM
You’re welcome.
Steve Schwartzman
March 23, 2013 at 8:46 AM
One of my favorite wildflowers. I have a tiny bit in my yard.
agnes
March 24, 2013 at 7:51 AM
This spring in Austin I’ve found it in several places, including a few where I hadn’t seen it before. Let’s hope that your little bit spreads.
Steve Schwartzman
March 24, 2013 at 1:39 PM
“The Fringed Puccoon” sounds as though it should be a poem by Rudyard Kipling – either that or a bar in Phuket. I was curious about the word “puccoon” and discovered it has Algonquin roots – it seems they used the plant’s roots for dye.
shoreacres
March 24, 2013 at 10:35 AM
Correct. The same Algonquin root accounts for the poke in pokeweed, a plant you’re more likely to be familiar with than puccoon. I remember pokeweed, with its purplish red fruit, even from the time I was growing up on Long Island. I thought I’d featured it in my blog, but apparently I haven’t. I’ll have to get around to it one of these days.
If you decide to play Rudyard Kipling and writing a poem about fringed puccoon—or to open a bar with that name in Phuket—please let us know.
Steve Schwartzman
March 24, 2013 at 1:45 PM
Ah, one of my friends that I’ll begin looking for in about 2 months! We also have hoary puccoons, both growing in the same habitat.
melissabluefineart
March 26, 2013 at 1:32 PM
Then you’re ahead of us because we have only this one species, while you get to play with two friendly relatives. On the other hand, the one that we do have is already doing its thing.
Steve Schwartzman
March 26, 2013 at 1:35 PM
Puccoon blooms here too but probably not this one. Always a welcome sight.
petspeopleandlife
March 28, 2013 at 10:05 AM
A welcome sight it is, and a sure sign of spring.
Steve Schwartzman
March 28, 2013 at 10:35 AM