Lazy daisies opening

Like the last many photographs, this one comes from an April 27th field trip to Bastrop State Park led by botanist Bill Carr. You’re looking at two stages in the opening of Aphanostephus skirrhobasis, known as lazy daisy and dozedaisy. Notice how most of the prominent color at the tips of a bud’s rays soon fades to white as a flower head opens: here today, gone tomorrow.

This species grows in Austin and the Texas Hill Country as well as Bastrop, and I’ve photographed it on several occasions, but today is the first time it has appeared in these pages.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman