Barbara’s buttons opening

On a May 9th visit to the Doeskin Ranch in Burnet County I found some Barbara’s buttons, Marshallia caespitosa. This member of the Asteraceae, or sunflower family, has no ray flowers, so all the florets you see opening here are disk flowers. Notice how these flowers do things in fives, which is better than being at sixes and sevens, right? And speaking of confusion, I’ve yet to find out who the Barbara was that inspired the common name of these “buttons.”

For a refresher on disk flowers and ray flowers, you can look back at the text from a few days ago. If you’d like to, you can also take a glance at a Barbara’s buttons flower head in a more advanced state of opening.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman