Silverpuff gone to seed

When I was photographing Chaptalia texana on February 2nd in the parking lot of my local Costco, I couldn’t help noticing that some of the plants had already aged into producing the seed heads that account for the common name silverpuff. You can see that this wildflower in its late stage is central Texas’s native answer to the invasive Eurasian dandelion.

On the technical side, I’ll add that I put myself in a position from which I could line up the puffball with an area of heavy shadows on the ground about 10–15 ft. away.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman