Astragalus leaves

And here from the same stop on the north side of Old Lampasas Trail on March 24th is a look at the pinnately compound leaves of what I took to be a ground plum plant, Astragalus crassicarpus.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

Astragalus

Click for much larger size.

When I walked through the greenbelt on the north side of Old Lampasas Trail on March 24th I found what I think was a ground plum, Astragalus crassicarpus. The light was low, so you get this soft portrait of one of the plant’s flowers.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

Morel mushroom

On March 23rd, some friends and I went on a mushroom hunt close to the place on Old Lampasas Trail where I went back and photographed the golden groundsel the next day. I led our little group to the spot where some years earlier I’d found a colony of morel mushrooms, Morchella esculenta, large enough to have gathered (and then eaten) several pounds of them, but this time there wasn’t a single one. We kept looking in the area, and eventually along a nearby creek we managed to find exactly three morel mushrooms. This was one of the three.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

Golden groundsel in a colony

Golden groundsel, Packera obovata (formerly Senecio obovatus), thrives in shade or partial shade, where it can form colonies. For several springs in a row I’ve gone back to a creekside along Old Lampasas Trail to photograph this colony, as I did on March 24th. Packera obovata is a close relative of the butterweed that you saw from a distance in the last post.

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I’m out of town for a few days. Feel free to leave comments, but it may take me a while to answer them.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

A different B & B

This time the B & B of the title are bluebonnets, Lupinus texensis, and butterweed, Packera tampicana. On the afternoon of April 4th, when I was driving northbound on US 183 and nearing the southernmost reaches of Austin, I saw these two adjacent colonies in a field at the intersection with Von Quintus Rd. (the street sign said Von Qunitus Rd.). The violet-colored flowers that you can make out in a few places among the bluebonnets are prairie verbenas, Glandularia bipinnatifida.

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I’m out of town for a few days. Feel free to leave comments, but it may take me a while to answer them.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

More loops

Another looping subject I found at McKinney Falls State Park on March 13th was this dry tendril from a mustang grape vine, Vitis mustangensis. This specimen was only a few inches long, but a mustang grape vine can grow to the height of a tree, with a girth to match.

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I’m out of town for a few days. Feel free to leave comments, but it may take me a while to answer them.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

Old plainsman, phlox, and other wildflowers

On April 4th along FM 467 southwest of Seguin I saw some old plainsman (Hymenopappus spp.) coming up and towering over the other wildflowers. The magenta flowers are phlox (Phlox spp.). Mixed in are some Indian paintbrushes (Castilleja indivisa) and bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis).

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I’m out of town for a few days. Feel free to leave comments, but it may take me a while to answer them.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

Displaced prickly pear

When I visited McKinney Falls State Park in southeast Austin on March 13th, Onion Creek, which passes through the park, was tame, but the adjacent vegetation gave a different message, one of the creek having recently flowed through more rapidly, and tangles of debris in various trees bespoke a much higher level of water. Whether this ailing prickly pear cactus, Opuntia engelmannii, was already growing in the tree before the deluge—yes, such things are possible—or whether the flood uprooted it from elsewhere and deposited it in these bare branches, I can’t say.

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I’m out of town for a few days. Feel free to leave comments, but it may take me a while to answer them.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

The real and the non-real

No, this isn’t my tombstone (have you ever seen a copyright notice on one?). If it were, though, I hope people would know I’d want only real wildflowers and not artificial ones. The actual flowers here are dominated by Indian paintbrushes, Castilleja indivisa. I don’t know what the fake flowers are supposed to be.

As with the picture from two posts back, this one comes from the grounds of the Christ Lutheran Church of Elm Creek on April 4th.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

Red admiral butterfly on plum blossoms

Click for greater clarity and size.

The first thing I checked out when I went to McKinney Falls State Park on March 13th was some Mexican plum trees, Prunus mexicana, that I remembered from last spring. I wasn’t disappointed: so many insects of various kinds were visiting the dense blossoms, especially bees, that the tree hummed. One of those insects was a red admiral butterfly, Vanessa atalanta.

You may say that I’m putting the metaphorical cart before the horse, but when I looked at the extended and slightly curved wings of this butterfly I couldn’t help thinking of a large jet plane gliding in for a landing. Would that all planes were as colorful.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman