Neocolonialism

Okay, it’s April Fool’s Day, and maybe the title fooled you into thinking this post has something to do with international politics. It doesn’t. Etymologically-minded me took neocolonialism literally, with neo meaning ‘new’ and colonial meaning ‘having to do with a colony.’ Today’s picture from March 29th shows the first new extensive colony of dense bluebonnets, Lupinus texensis, that we found this spring. (You’ll recall that the sustained sub-freezing spell in February delayed the appearance of many wildflowers). And by a happy coincidence these dense bluebonnets were doing their colonizing in the tiny town of Dubina, which had been the first Czech colony in Texas, about 75 miles southeast of Austin. Painting this bluebonnet colony with scattered daubs of red are Indian paintbrushes, Castilleja indivisa.

It’s not that I hadn’t been seeing individual bluebonnets and small groups of them for several weeks. I had. For example, on March 19th in Gonzales I’d photographed a fledgling (can a flower fledge?) bluebonnet that might better be called a fuzzbonnet. That time the red came from a phlox flower.

© 2021 Steven Schwartzman