Wildflower bonanza

In the little town of Lyons in Burleson County on April 6th we found this great mixture of purple phlox and what I take to be sandworts (Minuartia drummondii), with some Indian paintbrushes (Castilleja indivisa) adding red-orange touches.

© 2022 Steven Schwartzman

Two creamy kinds of flowers

Plains wild indigo (Baptisia bracteata var. leucophaea) doesn’t grow in Austin. It does grow a bit to our east and to our south. A little north of Gonzales along US 183 on March 28th the Lady Eve found several young plants and called them to my attention. The moody portrait above shows one of them.

Outside the town of Shiner on the same outing I pulled over to photograph a so-called horrid thistle, Cirsium horridulum, a native species that doesn’t normally grow in Austin. Some people rhymingly call this plant bristle thistle, and others use the names spiny thistle and bull thistle. Flower color varies, so the names yellow thistle and purple thistle are also in use.

I “planetized” the thistle flower head, which is to say that a circular crop and black background make me imagine the thistle as a planet in the void of outer space.

© 2022 Steven Schwartzman