Three stages and colors of partridge pea
The flowers of partridge pea, Chamaecrista fasciculata, are yellow, and of course the plant’s greenery is normally green. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that while most plants turn brown as they dry out, partridge pea has a tendency to turn red. You can see all of those partridge pea colors here among the breeze-blown dry grasses on a surviving (so far) parcel of the Blackland Prairie in Pflugerville on July 16th.
© 2015 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Now this is a funny coincidence. 🙂
Steve Gingold
August 28, 2015 at 5:40 AM
A perfect coincidence, we might say, because today is August 28. Ancient Greek mathematicians (who were better at arithmetic than modern Greek politicians) considered 28 a perfect number because it equals the sum of all its proper divisors: 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14 = 28.
Steve Schwartzman
August 28, 2015 at 7:28 AM
Steve and Steve and in cahoots with their peas.
Will you have a supermoon in your neck of the woods?
Jim in IA
August 28, 2015 at 7:03 AM
I found this article about that:
http://www.space.com/30376-supermoon-full-moon-2015-explained.html
As for the photographs:
We both work in the world of roots and shoots and fruits
But that by itself doesn’t mean we’re in cahoots.
Steve Schwartzman
August 28, 2015 at 7:42 AM
Can you find out the roots of cahoots for me?
Jim in IA
August 28, 2015 at 7:57 AM
From what I gather, the roots of cahoots are buried:
https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=cahoots
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cahoots
Steve Schwartzman
August 28, 2015 at 8:26 AM
It’s interesting that the reddish color so nearly resembles that shown by some of the scarlet peas I saw in Goliad. They mostly were a pretty salmon, but some were much darker. Perhaps they change color when aging, too. I looked up the scarlet pea again, and read something I’d missed before. Cutting encourages prolific blooming. Since they regularly mow the parade ground at the Presidio, that may explain why they were so thick in that spot.
shoreacres
August 28, 2015 at 10:27 PM
Salmon is the most frequent color I see for scarlet peas here in Austin. In that species the shades of red are in the flowers, but with partridge pea the red I had in mind comes from the leaves (and somewhat from the stems) when the plant dries out; the next post will make that clear. It’s interesting that cutting encourages prolific blooming in the species. The parcel of prairie where I photographed these partridge peas on July 16th didn’t appear to have been mowed any time recently, something that I think worked in my favor, though I don’t know if the partridge pea plants would otherwise have bloomed more prolifically. There were plenty of blooms already.
Steve Schwartzman
August 28, 2015 at 10:39 PM