Continuing wildflower profusion

The ample rain we’ve kept getting in central Texas this spring has continued to bring out good stands of wildflowers. Here you see a colony of basket-flowers, Centaurea americana, with some firewheels, Gaillardia pulchella, and a few square-bud primroses, Calylophus berlandieri, mixed in. Notice that many of the firewheels had already shed their red-and-yellow rays and become globular seed heads.

Oh well, if we’re talking about profusion I guess I should add at least one more picture of the dense wildflowers in that field. This second photograph has the distinction, I think, of being the only one taken at a focal length of 16mm ever to appear in these pages. In this wide-angle view are prairie bishop’s weed, Bifora americana; Indian blanket, Gaillardia pulchella; greenthread, Thelesperma filifolium; and a few basket-flowers, Centaurea americana.

I found these dense wildflower displays on a not-yet-developed property along Louis Henna Blvd. in Round Rock on the afternoon of May 17. We had rain that night and again on May 19.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman