And here’s a buffalo bur flower

Last time you saw some opening buds of buffalo bur, Solanum rostratum, and now here’s a fully open flower. Compare this yellow-on-yellow flower to its two-tone genus-mate Solanum dimidiatum (and compare this nine-hyphens-in-three-noun-phrases sentence to any you or I have written recently). This time most of the spines you might otherwise see are hidden under the flower, but I count three shadowy ones reaching out like a would-be claw beneath the juncture of the two closest petals, and there’s another spine on the stem below that. On the other hand, perhaps you’re saying to yourself: who cares about counting spines when I’ve got those crazy curvy little banana-like stamens to look at?

Today’s photograph, like the previous one, is from the same July 23rd outing along Muir Lake Trail in Cedar Park that brought you the recent picture of a damselfly with hangers-on.

Yesterday Charlie@SeattleTrekker asked about the seeds of this species. I haven’t posted a picture of the seeds per se, but here’s one that shows a spent seed capsule and its entourage of spines.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman