Mountain pink eradicated

Click for greater clarity.

On July 30th, a month ago today, I was walking through a still-undeveloped property in northwest Austin when I came across a mountain pink, Centaurium beyrichii, which was normal in the way it had dried out but abnormal in two other respects: something had pulled the plant, root and all, out of the ground; and something, perhaps the same agent that caused the eradication, had flattened the plant. So there I found it, flat on the ground, looking forlorn, not a great subject for a photograph. I picked the plant up, held it out in front of me at arm’s length—why aren’t my arms longer?—and photographed it, as shown here, against that day’s wispy sky. The plant’s brightness may make you think that I used flash, but the only illumination came from the noontime sun.

If you’d like a reminder of what this species is like when it’s fresh—and not just as a background the way it appeared in yesterday morning’s photograph—you can have a look upward from afar at some plants on a cliff or closely downward at a flowering dome. And for the large majority of you who weren’t visiting this blog in the second week of its existence in June of 2011, I invite you to see what a mountain pink bud looks like.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman