Ribbon snake

During a field trip to the Shield Ranch on October 18th I photographed this ribbon snake (seemingly Thamnophis proximus rubrilineatus). In case you’re wondering, this slender snake did let me get as close with my 100mm macro lens as it looks like I was, perhaps because I lay on the ground and therefore didn’t seem too threatening. That seems like a good assumption, because as soon as I stood back up to try to get a better view of the colorful ribbon on the top of the snake, it slithered away.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Why wafer ash is called wafer ash

Wafer ash is called wafer ash because of its samaras. A samara is a winged fruit, and the small (0.75–1 inch, 18–25 mm), mostly flat ones of Ptelea trifoliata must have looked to people like little wafers. They still do.

I made this close view of a backlit wafer ash samara in Balcones District Park on January 3, 2012.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Wafer ash leaflets

On October 16th, as part of the annual Native Plant Society of Texas symposium, I went on a field trip to a normally-closed-to-the-public section of the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge. While walking through a dry creek bed there (we’d been in a drought again), I stopped to photograph this backlit compound leaf of Ptelea trifoliata, known as a wafer ash or hop tree. The ash in the common name wafer ash comes from the fact that the leaves are similar to those of some ash trees, but this tree is in the citrus family, Rutaceae. Today marks the first time the species has appeared here.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

False obedient plant

Speaking of cattails (as I did yesterday), when I participated in a field trip to the Cedar Stump Ranch on October 16th, I saw something I’ve seldom seen: several so-called false obedient plants, Physostegia spp., which were flowering among a stand of cattails along a (dry) creek. The yellow flowers in the background near the bottom of the photograph were goldenrod, Solidago spp.

If you’d like a closer look at some of the false obedient plant flowers in this stand, click the excerpt below and it will expand to a detailed enlargement.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Cattails by pond at dawn

Twice in the fall of 2014 I pulled a Steve Gingold by going out in the dark before dawn to places where I could get in position for daybreak. Last year I showed a picture from the first of those two sessions but none from the other. Here, then, on the one-year anniversary of that second dawn expedition, is a photograph taken at a pond on the eastern side of Buda, a rapidly growing town south-southwest of Austin. Cattails (Typha domingensis) stood between the water and me.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Arc following arc

By October, when the shrub or small tree known as poverty weed (Baccharis neglecta) begins to turn fluffy white with flowers, its weak branches bend and curve and wave in the breeze. Here the effect was intensified by late-season puffs of fluff from the vine called old man’s beard (Clematis drummondii).

The site at the western end of Mocha Trail in far north Austin where I took this photograph on October 20 used to be a much bigger playground for me, but last year a large part of the property gave way to an apartment complex. Fortunately one of the remaining pieces of undeveloped land still shelters its quota of native plants, as it has since I discovered it a decade ago, so I spent a good hour there taking pictures during this latest visit.

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Update: In comments on yesterday’s post and a previous one about leaf miners, Charley Eiseman identified the kinds of insect larvae involved and told some interesting things about them.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Leaf miner trails in Texas lantana leaf

The leaves of Texas lantana (Lantana urticoides) are fragrant, but of course I can’t convey that to you in a photograph. What I can convey is the intricate design that I found on one of those leaves in Great Hills Park on October 5th. The design isn’t an intrinsic feature of the plant but is caused by any of various insect larvae known as leaf miners.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Old and new

The old that the title refers to is a dry seed head of Gaillardia pulchella, known as firewheel, Indian blanket, and blanket flower. There are two new things: 1) the scaffold of spiderwebs covering the dry stalk and seed head  2) the many small but bright yellow flowers of broomweed, Amphiachyris dracunculoides, out of focus and partly polygonalized in the background.

Any resemblance to “The Starry Night” is purely coincidental; I doubt Van Gogh ever even heard of broomweed and firewheel, much less saw any. The only connection I can make to France, where that painter worked in the final years of his life, is the cul-de-sac at the end of Meister Lane in southeastern Round Rock where I took this photograph on the first day of October.

Cricket and goldenrod

From the goldenrod (Solidgo spp.) flowers in the background I take the dry plant to be goldenrod as well, and from what seems to be an ovipositor I take the cricket to be a female. Why it had one wing splayed to the side and its two rear legs stuck out in the air, I don’t know. Or maybe I do: the two frontmost legs on the left side appear truncated or bent sharply back toward the body, so perhaps the cricket was dead. Yes, that would also explain why it didn’t move while I took pictures of it.

Today’s photograph is from September 29th near the intersection of E. Stassney Ln. and Burleson Rd. in southeast Austin.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

If it’s autumn (which it is) there must be goldeneye (which there is)

On October 8th I photographed my first goldeneye (Viguiera dentata) of the season at Blunn Creek Preserve in south Austin. The tree at the left is a cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia).

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman