A Mexican hat mitten
How about a Mexican hat that looked more like a mitten? I saw this strangely forming Ratibida columnifera in Austin six years ago today. Note the spider silk in various places. The colors in the background were from an Indian blanket, Gaillardia pulchella.
© 2019 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
what an interesting shape –
ksbeth
May 6, 2019 at 5:05 AM
Just yesterday I came across a Mexican hat in a later stage of development that had two mostly fused, equal-sized central columns.
Steve Schwartzman
May 6, 2019 at 6:01 AM
Mexican hat is one of my favorites around these parts. We have a large patch of them just west of the slough area of the pecan orchard. This mitten is an interesting find. I’d wear a pair like that in that lovely color and design!
Littlesundog
May 6, 2019 at 6:36 AM
You can be the first to design, produce, and market mittens like these. It seems you’d have ready buyers among gardeners and native plant lovers.
I’m glad to hear you’ve got a large patch of Mexican hats on your property. The ones in Austin had been developing through April and began flowering last week. I imagine yours in Oklahoma are a bit behind ours.
Steve Schwartzman
May 6, 2019 at 6:58 AM
All of our wildflowers are just now at their prime. I’d guess we’re three to four weeks behind you real southerners! It’s a banner year here too, with wildflowers.
Littlesundog
May 6, 2019 at 10:16 AM
I’m glad to hear you’re flying that banner up there, too.
Steve Schwartzman
May 6, 2019 at 11:12 AM
A good catch.
Gallivanta
May 6, 2019 at 7:00 AM
If I’d been wearing mittens I wouldn’t have been able to make that photographic catch. (Last winter I managed to take pictures while wearing regular gloves.)
Steve Schwartzman
May 6, 2019 at 7:05 AM
Now that’s an excellent one. Or excellent ones = picture + text
Pit
May 6, 2019 at 8:32 AM
Then on behalf of the picture and the text I’ll have to say thanks and thanks.
Steve Schwartzman
May 6, 2019 at 8:38 AM
Instantly upon seeing this image the phrase “manamana” popped into my head – a puppet mitten perhaps?
composerinthegarden
May 6, 2019 at 9:04 PM
I had to look that up. I’m afraid I was too old to watch the Muppets by the time they became popular. Still, I understand your mitten association. Shall we say “smitten with a mitten”?
Steve Schwartzman
May 6, 2019 at 10:43 PM
I was an adult when they premiered but I still watched them 🙂 Yes, smitten with a mitten works!
composerinthegarden
May 7, 2019 at 9:02 AM
And you can be the kitten who is smitten with the mitten.
Steve Schwartzman
May 7, 2019 at 9:55 AM
[…] The astute viewer will have noticed (as some writers used to put it) the contrast between the flowerful embankment that fills two-thirds of the photograph, and the bare one on the other side of the highway. I don’t recall whether that opposite embankment had looked as good as the near one; I do know that just a few days earlier I saw mowers cutting down all the wildflowers on that side of Mopac farther south, in the vicinity of Far West Blvd. I’d been planning to photograph there but didn’t make it. Fortunately I was in time to catch this display on the east side of the highway. Below is another view, now in my usual way, which is to say without any human elements. The bits of white are gaura, Oenothera spp., and the darker flowers are Mexican hats, Ratibida columnifera, a strange one of which you saw in the previous post. […]
Wildflowers along Mopac | Portraits of Wildflowers
May 7, 2019 at 4:45 AM
Obviously a plant with an identity crisis. One is never too old for the Muppets.
Steve Gingold
May 8, 2019 at 5:48 PM
Well, if I haven’t Muppetized by now, I don’t think it’s gonna happen. I like the way you described this strange Mexican hat as “a plant with an identity crisis.”
Steve Schwartzman
May 8, 2019 at 6:36 PM
It took no time at all for me to think of my mother when I saw this photo. She was quite the knitter, and like every good knitter she always put point protectors on the ends of her needles for safety. She had a pair of red ‘mittens’ she used, and they looked remarkably like this plant. I even found a photo of her ‘mittens’ online.
shoreacres
May 8, 2019 at 9:10 PM
I appreciate the punning name of the website you liked to: Ravelry. Now I see why this strange Mexican hat reminded you of point protectors, which I’d never heard of, and then why you were reminded of your mother. She probably never wore a real Mexican hat, even if she saw some of the floral kind in Texas.
Steve Schwartzman
May 9, 2019 at 6:12 AM
An innovative flower not content with her usual habiliments.
tanjabrittonwriter
May 9, 2019 at 10:54 AM
Thanks for your compliment on the unusual habiliment. Some might call it an unruliment.
Steve Schwartzman
May 9, 2019 at 1:25 PM
Since I could not find the meaning for this unruly word during a quick search, I assume you have employed your powers to neologize.
tanjabrittonwriter
May 9, 2019 at 2:34 PM
On other occasions I’ve strategized, analogized, etymologized, and even, as you said, neologized. Not this time:
https://www.onelook.com/?w=unruliment&ls=a
Steve Schwartzman
May 9, 2019 at 2:40 PM
Thank you for the link, Steve. My search was not thorough enough.
tanjabrittonwriter
May 9, 2019 at 2:56 PM
The portal at onelook.com is a good one because a single search looks in a bunch of dictionaries. The home page explains the kinds of wildcard searches you can undertake. For example, a search for *gize will find all words ending in -gize.
Steve Schwartzman
May 9, 2019 at 3:06 PM
I will bookmark the site, thank you!
tanjabrittonwriter
May 9, 2019 at 3:12 PM
It’s worth bookmarking. Happy future searches.
Steve Schwartzman
May 9, 2019 at 3:56 PM
Wonderful shot Steve … has to be a mitten! 🙂
Julie@frogpondfarm
May 11, 2019 at 3:06 PM
So you’re committin’ to a mitten.
Steve Schwartzman
May 11, 2019 at 4:24 PM
It looks like a frowning Muppet.
tonytomeo
May 12, 2019 at 3:20 PM
From one M to another: a mitten to a Muppet.
Steve Schwartzman
May 12, 2019 at 5:11 PM
or a mutant.
tonytomeo
May 13, 2019 at 9:07 AM
Mmmm…
Steve Schwartzman
May 13, 2019 at 3:49 PM
My first reaction was to laugh! This is so cool. It made me think of an oven mitt, for sure an oven mitt.
eLPy
April 28, 2020 at 8:04 PM
Yes, it looks so well padded it could pass for an oven mitt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another Mexican hat like it. Last year I came across the photo in my archive and felt I had to post it. I’m glad I did.
Steve Schwartzman
April 28, 2020 at 8:10 PM