Groundplum flowers
While at the Doeskin Ranch in Burnet County on March 24th I found a happily flowering colony of Astragalus crassicarpus. var. berlandieri, a Texas endemic known as Berlandier’s groundplum, groundplum milkvetch, or just groundplum. The species has appeared here only twice before, the first time as a limited-focus view of the plant’s leaves. A straightforward portrait of the flowers, as in today’s view, has a naturally pastel look to it.
© 2021 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Great capture !
picpholio
April 6, 2021 at 5:21 AM
You could say the image captured me.
Steve Schwartzman
April 6, 2021 at 5:34 AM
Very elegant and lovely. What size are these blossoms?
Robert Parker
April 6, 2021 at 5:58 AM
“Elegant and lovely” sounds good to me. A Texas wildflower guides says each flower grows up to an inch long. Because the plant produces its flowers in clusters, a casual viewer might mistakenly conclude that a cluster is a single larger flower.
Steve Schwartzman
April 6, 2021 at 6:10 AM
What a beauty. The structure of the bloom reminds me of clovers, with their clusters of individual flowers. Since I’ve never heard of this one, when I read ‘ground plum,’ I imagined a fruit the size of buffalo gourd. I suspect that isn’t going to happen. Does it produce some sort of edible fruit? That would explain the common name. (That Berlandier fellow certainly got around.)
Speaking of new discoveries, do you have the Anaqua tree in Austin? They’re blooming around Goliad and Gonzalez now, and the fragrance is strong enough to be detected some distance from the trees. I was surprised to see that they’re native. It’s too bad they don’t seem to favor the areas where the Bradford pear is the landscapers’ choice. I might have had a hard time identifying the tree, but a woman told me what they are.
shoreacres
April 6, 2021 at 6:44 AM
The resemblance you see comes from the fact that this plant belongs to the same botanical family as clovers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the fruit, but there’s a picture of it at https://www.wildflower.org/gallery/result.php?id_image=1439. The anacua tree reaches the edge of its range in Travis county and is rare in the wild this far north; however, people have been planting anacuas for their pleasant flowers. Whether the sustained February freeze killed them off, I don’t know. The Mexican white oak on our front lawn has shown no signs of life since then.
Steve Schwartzman
April 6, 2021 at 7:12 AM
Beautifully captured, Steve!
Eliza Waters
April 6, 2021 at 8:23 AM
Thanks. I hit upon a good angle for a portrait.
Steve Schwartzman
April 6, 2021 at 8:33 AM
A portrait of a wildflower honouring your blog with its beauty, Steve!
Peter Klopp
April 6, 2021 at 8:31 AM
Now we can start thinking of wildflowers as honorable.
Steve Schwartzman
April 6, 2021 at 8:47 AM
That’s so delicate – both the details of the structure and the colouring. Beautiful!
Ann Mackay
April 6, 2021 at 10:05 AM
It does look delicate, and yet these perennial plants manage to make it through the torrid Texas summer to flower again the next spring.
Steve Schwartzman
April 6, 2021 at 11:55 AM
Beautiful – love the focus work on this one
M.B. Henry
April 6, 2021 at 2:21 PM
Thanks. It turned out to be an excellent angle for viewing these flowers.
Steve Schwartzman
April 6, 2021 at 2:44 PM
When I clicked on your website and saw this photo, I sighed. It was an uplifting vision on a harried morning, a beautiful, calming capture. I don’t know this plant, but looked it up on the LBJWC’s site. Thanks for the intro!
Tina
April 6, 2021 at 5:43 PM
You’re welcome, especially if it brought some relief on a harried morning. I haven’t often seen this species, so to come across a bunch of it flowering in one place at the Doeskin Ranch was a good opportunity for portraits—as was the prairie paintbrush I showed here two days ago.
Steve Schwartzman
April 6, 2021 at 6:44 PM
Beautiful intricate detail
norasphotos4u
April 6, 2021 at 8:33 PM
A close look is often a rewarding look.
Steve Schwartzman
April 7, 2021 at 6:18 AM
What a beauty! It looks like (according to the NRCS) I’ll have to come to Texas to see it in person.
Littlesundog
April 7, 2021 at 9:16 AM
Yeah, this one’s a Texas endemic—and yet another reason to visit here.
Steve Schwartzman
April 7, 2021 at 11:30 AM
a keeper
MichaelStephenWills
April 9, 2021 at 6:52 AM
I kept it.
Steve Schwartzman
April 9, 2021 at 6:03 PM
Such a pretty flower and a lovely capture of that beauty.
Steve Gingold
April 12, 2021 at 1:56 PM
Thanks. This pastel portrait made me happy.
Steve Schwartzman
April 12, 2021 at 8:27 PM