More from back in Austin
Here are three pictures from May 20th at the otherwise nondescript corner of US 290 and Springdale Rd. in northeast Austin. The opening one shows a stately and colorful horsemint (Monarda citriodora). Next comes the somewhat unkempt flower head of a Coreopsis species. Might a spider have had a “hand” in that?
Below, look at the coarse hairs and mottled surface on a sunflower plant (Helianthus annuus).
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One theme in my commentaries over the past three years has been that our courts must scrupulously afford due process to every person accused of a crime. It makes no difference whether an accused person is likable or unlikable, wealthy or poor, sophisticated or simple, famous or obscure: everyone deserves due process.
Unfortunately, in a very recent and very prominent court case the defendant was denied due process in multiple ways. You can read the details in a June 4th Wall Street Journal article by David B. Rivkin Jr. and Elizabeth Price Foley. As you read through the article, consider whether you would feel you’d gotten due process if you were the accused and the things described in the article had been done to you.
© 2024 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
This is nice to see. We’ve gotten so crowded here, I don’t know where there is an empty lot to find wildflowers.
GP
June 10, 2024 at 5:38 AM
I referred to the corner as nondescript because a drab industrial building occupied the lot except for a small fringe of earth adjacent to the highway. Fortunately for me—and any passerby who looked—dense wildflowers had sprung up on that fringe.
Austin does still have lots with no human structures on them, and I’ve often taken nature pictures on those lots. Unfortunately development has kept reducing the number of such places.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2024 at 6:40 AM
I meant to ask where the “here” is that’s gotten so crowded.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2024 at 7:53 AM
South Florida.
GP
June 10, 2024 at 1:47 PM
Ah, yet another New Yorker who moved to Florida. Our next-door neighbors in Franklin Square were the first I became aware of, many decades ago.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2024 at 2:51 PM
I’ve been here 53 years, and frankly the heat and overcrowding are getting to me. No, they already have gotten to me!
GP
June 11, 2024 at 5:44 AM
Austin and its surrounding towns have also grown a lot in the 48 years I’ve been here. One reason I moved south from New York is that I’ve always done much better with heat than cold. I traded half a year of the latter for half a year of the former.
Steve Schwartzman
June 11, 2024 at 7:21 AM
Thank you, Steve, for the beautiful Monarda’s photo! Others are interesting too!
Joanna
gabychops
June 10, 2024 at 6:07 AM
Horsemints vary a lot in the intensity of their purple, with some being very pale. The richness of this one made it a prime subject.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2024 at 6:43 AM
I finally found a horsemint in an unexpected location: it was small, and pale lavender rather than such a deep purple, but it ‘was,’ and that was enough. The location was the Dudney Nature Center, which finally reopened after being closed for months and months. I’m eager to do a little more exploring there. On my first visit, I’d forgotten mosquito spray: a serious mistake.
I really like the sunflower stalk; the contrasting colors, combined with the hairs, make it especially attractive. In the Great Long Ago, I took a similar photo without having a clue what I was looking at. When a friend’s plant ID app suggested H. annuus, I didn’t believe it. Ignorance may or may not be bliss, but it provides a good bit of amusement after the fact.
shoreacres
June 10, 2024 at 8:43 AM
¡Happy horsemint! One species down, a zillion to go.
Sunflower stalks have drawn my photographic attention about at long as the flowers, which, as you alluded to, are much more familiar to people than the stalks. The Great Long Ago has given way to the Great Present Time, in which you’ve come to recognize and appreciate both parts of the plant. In addition to the stiff hairs and the mottled colors, drops of sticky resin are common, too, though not on this specimen.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2024 at 9:17 AM
Lovely Horsemints!
MmeBluestocking
June 10, 2024 at 10:20 AM
Yes. This one was part of a small group, but sometimes horsemints form large, dense colonies.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2024 at 10:45 AM
Nothing like beautiful plants to turn a nondescript corner into a very descript one.
Our area has a fair amount of Spotted Horsemint (Monarda punctata), which, I believe, you may enjoy as well. Not only are the flowers lovely, they attract a great number of pollinators.
Don’t know if a spider had a hand in the sunflower pose (more likely a leg), but someone with a fanciful imagination could believe the bloom was just being bashful.
I have been learning that many plants have stems equally or even more interesting than their flowers.
Wally Jones
June 10, 2024 at 10:34 AM
Nondescript belongs to a set of negative adjectives whose positive versions we use a lot less or not at all. Some others are ineffable, implacable, insipid, and ungainly.
Yes, Monarda punctata grows in central Texas. I’ve mostly found it over by Bastrop.
When I come across flowers whose elements are pulled together, I often see traces of spider silk. I didn’t notice any here, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any or that a spider hadn’t been the agent.
It’s commendable that in the realm of plants you’ve stemmed the tide of paying attention only to their flowers.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2024 at 10:56 AM
The flower head of a Coreopsis species is my favorite. Looks beautiful against the blue sky.
Alessandra Chaves
June 11, 2024 at 9:15 PM
I often use a clear sky as an amorphous background to isolate a subject against. That the yellow of the coreopsis contrasts prettily with the blue of the sky was a plus.
Steve Schwartzman
June 12, 2024 at 7:24 AM
The shapes within the horsemint flowers are amazing – another of nature’s wonderful sculptures!
Ann Mackay
June 16, 2024 at 5:18 AM
When I first saw horsemints a couple of decades ago I thought of them as little pagodas.
Steve Schwartzman
June 16, 2024 at 7:08 AM
I can see why!
Ann Mackay
June 16, 2024 at 7:22 AM
Now you’ve got me wondering whether anyone has ever built a structure resembling a horsemint.
Steve Schwartzman
June 16, 2024 at 7:44 AM
Hehe!
Ann Mackay
June 16, 2024 at 5:32 PM
That first photo is stunning ..I used to grow bergamot years ago. This is a reminder to do so again … the bees just love it
Julie@frogpondfarm
June 18, 2024 at 1:40 PM
What you said is confirmed by an alternate common name for the native Monarda species in central Texas: beebalm.
Steve Schwartzman
June 18, 2024 at 2:25 PM