Last time vertical, this time horizontal

Click for greater clarity and size.

Here’s another view, this time horizontal, from my July 19th photo session near the eastern end of Balcones Woods Dr. Once again you’re looking at bundles of lustrous strands produced by Clematis drummondii. Note the various seed cores—mostly green here, one brown—from which the strands emerge.

Some people know this vine as old man’s beard, a name that refers to the stage in which the mass of strands begins to lose its sheen and take on a more feathery and then a duller appearance, as near the lower right and lower left corners of the photograph.

To give you a sense of scale, I’ll add that the width of today’s picture represents no more than 3 in. (8 cm).

To see the places in the Southwest where Clematis drummondii has been found, you can check the state-clickable map at the USDA website.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman

A metallic sheen where there’s no metal

By late June I’d begun noticing the Clematis drummondii vines flowering in quantity around town, and by mid-July I found them doing their famous trick of producing strands that can look metallic as they glint, glare, glow, gleam, glimmer, and glisten in the glory of the sunlight, some say seemingly for our delight.

Speaking of the gloss of metal, I’ll add that this photograph is from the same July 19th session along Balcones Woods Dr. that brought you a photograph of a copper lily. If you look carefully at the wisps of Clematis drummondii in the upper left corner of the photograph, you’ll see that the strands in the background there look like copper wire.

Oh, and I should’ve told you that the height of today’s Clematis drummondii picture represents probably little more than 2 in. (5 cm). That’s a small space for so much shining.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman