Texas sotol

When I visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on March 25th I photographed this Texas sotol, Dasylirion texanum, a species that’s native in an area beginning a couple of counties to the south and west of Austin, but that many landscapers are fond of planting here in spite of the saw-like edges of the leaves. This is one such planted specimen.

If you happened to glance at the tags attached to this post and were puzzled by “animals” and “birds,” look at the picture again, especially near the lower right corner, and you’ll be greeted by the gaze of an owl that had taken up residence there. I’d thought of showing this photograph some time ago but then I got much closer pictures of an owl in my own back yard and showed one of those instead. Still, this has a certain charm, so I thought I’d slip it in here after all, and after almost seven months.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman