On the other side of earth’s orbit

There’s nothing unusual about these flowers of Ageratina havanensis per se, but the fact that I found them in Austin on June 8—and other blossoming specimens of the shrub in mid-May—is unusual, because this is normally a fall-blooming bush. One hypothesis is that all the rain we’ve had here this spring triggered this out-of-sync flowering, but at the same time I haven’t seen any other fall flowers coming out prematurely. Oh well, each species is special, right?

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman