Partridge pea with shadows

Partridge pea flowers, Chamaecrista fasciculata, are attractive in their own right, but the shadows cast by this one on part of itself add to the appeal. I took this picture on August 8th near where Old Spicewood Springs Rd. crosses Bull Creek.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

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I’m out of town for a while. Of course you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if it takes me longer than usual to respond.

Downy gaura seed stalk loop

Do you remember the downy gaura (Gaura parviflora or Oenothera curtiflora) you saw with a soft cloud behind it the other day? (Sure you do.) Well here’s a seed stalk of that species that a spider had bent into a loop. When I took this picture on August 8th near where Old Spicewood Springs Rd. crosses Bull Creek I didn’t see the spider, but its silk says it had been there, and stalks of downy gaura don’t form loops by themselves.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

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I’m out of town for a while. Of course you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if it takes me longer than usual to respond.

Camphorweed bud opening

Click for greater clarity.

Another thing I photographed on the Blackland Prairie in northeast Austin on August 6th was this opening flower head of camphorweed, Heterotheca subaxillaris. The color in the background came from some prairie verbena, Glandularia bipinnatifida. And speaking of glands, notice the tiny drops of fragrant resin exuded by the camphorweed. The camphor in the popular name tells you what the resin smells like to some people.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

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I’m out of town for a while. Of course you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if it takes me longer than usual to respond.

Downy gaura and downy cloud

Still another thing I photographed on August 6th at a sump on the Blackland Prairie in northeast Austin was this wildflower known as downy gaura and velvetleaf gaura, based on the plant’s fuzziness. I’ve known this wildflower as Gaura parviflora (and previously as Gaura mollis), but in looking at a recent version of Bill Carr’s plant list for Travis County I was surprised to find that molecular analysis has led botanists to move all the species of Gaura (as well as those of Stenosiphon and Calylophus) into the genus Oenothera. Downy gaura is Oenothera curtiflora in the new classification.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

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I’m out of town for a while. Of course you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if it takes me longer than usual to respond.

Ludwigia capsule

Oh yeah, and here’s what the distinctive seed “boxes” of Ludwigia octovalvis look like. This picture, like the last few, is from August 6th at a sumpy place I know on the Blackland Prairie in northeast Austin. To see the regions in the southeastern United States where this species grows, you can check out the USDA map.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

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I’m out of town for a while. Of course you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if it takes me longer than usual to respond.

Rosy purpe and pale lavender

Most of the Ammannia plants I found on August 6th at the edge of a pond on the Blackland Prairie in northeast Austin had flowers of a rosy purple color:

A few of the plants, however, had flowers that were so pale a violet color as to seem almost white:

These plants might be a different Ammannia species, A. robusta. If so, then I’ve doubled my fun by finding two species that were new to me at the same time.

Note once again the yellow flowers of Ludwigia octovalvis in the background.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

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I’m out of town for a while. Of course you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if it takes me longer than usual to respond.

A new species for me and probably for thee

Near the Ludwigia octovalvis that appeared in the last post (and a flower of which you can make out in the background of today’s picture) I found some erect plants of a type I don’t believe I’d ever seen before. Joe Marcus of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center identified them for me as a species of Ammannia, probably Ammannia coccinea. He also commented:

Ammannia is a genus that I very rarely see anywhere around central Texas, though it is definitely native here.  Not sure why they’re not more common around these parts.  I found some plants growing near Kyle once and that is my only encounter with it in the area.  They’re much more common in north Texas.  My sense of it is that they’re happiest in waste places – wet, waste places, of course.

A question, then, for those of you in the Austin area: have you ever come across this native plant?

As was the case last time, this picture comes from August 6th at the edge of a pond on the Blackland Prairie in northeast Austin.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

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I’m out of town for a while. Of course you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if it takes me longer than usual to respond.

Ludwigia

On August 6th I drove over to a sumpy place I know on the Blackland Prairie in northeast Austin. One plant that regularly grows at the edge of the pond there is Ludwigia octovalvis, vernacular names for which include water primrose, narrow-leaf water primrose, Mexican primrose willow, and seedbox. Behold one of its pretty flowers.

To see the places in the southeastern United States where this species grows, you can check out the USDA map.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

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I’m out of town for a while. Of course you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if it takes me longer than usual to respond.

Later than usual

August is too late for large quantities of white prickly poppies, Argemone albiflora, but there can still be stragglers, and in fact I was surprised to come upon one just last week. Back on August 5th at Brushy Creek Lake Park in the town of Cedar Park (on the same outing that brought you a photograph of Clematis and clouds) I’d come across the white prickly poppy shown here, which had attracted some tiny insects. They kept darting about on the flower’s stamens so I used a shutter speed of 1/1000 sec. to stop their motion.

Argemone albiflora is the only species of poppy native to the Austin area. Don’t you like the way all its yellow-orange stamens surround the lone red and velvety-looking stigma? This species of poppy also has very delicate petals, details of which I showed in a 2012 post. If you’re not familiar with white prickly poppies, you may also want to take a look at the intricate and fractal-like patterns in these plants’ leaves. And if you haven’t gotten link-happy by now, you can see one of these pristine white flowers serving as an emblem of resurgence after the devastating Bastrop wildfires of 2011.

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Happy autumnal equinox tonight (Austin time), and may you all retain your equanimity.

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I’m out of town for a while. Of course you’re welcome to leave comments, but please understand if it takes me longer than usual to respond.

It’s time for blazing-star again

On September 7th I was driving in northeast Austin on the way to the house of some friends when for the first time this year I spotted a flowering Liatris mucronata, known as gayfeather and blazing-star. The next day I went to a part of the Blackland Prairie a mile from the previous afternoon’s sighting (but with an easier place to park) and spent a good while photographing plants of this species. What you’re seeing here is the top of a spike that was two to three times as tall as this flowering part. Note the opening buds near the bottom of the picture; this is apparently a plant whose buds open from the top down.

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I’m leaving for vacation today but I won’t be leaving you without pictures while I’m gone. That said, please understand if I’m slow to reply to comments in the days ahead.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman