White and green are also red

You may remember the recent picture of a flowering snow-on-the-prairie, Euphorbia bicolor, from September 14th at the Blunn Creek Preserve in south Austin. On October 8th I went back and was pleased to see that the bush still had flowers on it. Granted, those flowers were beginning to look a bit old, but that’s hardly surprising after three weeks.

Now that you’ve had a closer view than before of the flowers and bracts, let me also show you the colorful stalk that this plant typically has. Think of a red candelabra if you wish. I was able to get an unimpeded shot of the stalk and branches because work has been going on to remove invasive non-native species from the preserve. By the time of my second visit, this snow-on-the-prairie was the only plant left standing in what had become a little clearing in the woods. I remember on my first visit having to hold some non-native things down to take my pictures, which looked in the opposite direction from the one of the stalk, and also having to aim carefully to exclude a couple of non-native trees from the background. Now you understand what an exclusive blog this is.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman