Mustang grape vine and cumulus clouds

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Here are some cumulus clouds above a large mustang grape vine, Vitis mustangensis, that gardeners at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center have trained over a trellis in the Center’s display gardens. A woman who was working there the morning I visited told me that this mustang grape had just been trimmed back because of its prolific growth. She also said that in contrast to a mustang grape on the opposite side of the courtyard, this one never produces grapes and therefore must be a male.

If you’d like to be reminded—or learn—that a mustang grape vine can grow as thick and woody as a tree, you’re welcome to check out two posts from January of 2012; one of the huge vines was curiously looped, and the other had the virtue (as we see such things) of serving as a perch for a yellow-crowned night heron.

Today’s photograph is the fourth you’re seeing from a group I took at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on July 23.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman