Coral honeysuckle flower and buds

A couple of months ago I discovered a picture in my archives that I’d never shown, so here it is on the 10th anniversary of the date I took it. You’re looking at a coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) flower surrounded by buds along Great Northern Blvd. Unfortunately construction along Mopac and the building of a sound-mitigating wall have destroyed or blocked much of the strip where I used to photograph native plants.

And here’s a quotation for today: “… [A] copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned thing is ample.” — Rebecca West, 1928, in the essay “The Strange Necessity.” Quote Investigator offers more information.

© 2021 Steven Schwartzman

Yellow in a photograph and yellow implied in words

Above is a view from below of an Engelmann daisy (Engelmannia peristenia) flower head along Great Northern Blvd. on March 13th. Note the tiny insect, which I don’t remember seeing at the time I took the picture. Maybe we should stop saying “as blind as a bat” and start saying “as blind as a photographer.”

Below is a view from above of some adjacent Engelmann daisies. In both pictures, notice the notch at the tip of each ray flower.

The unrelated “yellow implied in words” that this post’s title alludes to comes from a multiply alliterative sentence in Tom Standage’s 2009 book An Edible History of Humanity, which I’m reading now: “A cultivated field of maize, or any other crop, is as man-made as a microchip, a magazine, or a missile.”

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

From copper lily to copperleaf

On August 18 along Great Northern Blvd. I photographed this inflorescence of a little native plant in the genus Acalypha. I’m not sure of the species but some in this genus are known as copperleaf, so combine that with the subject of yesterday’s post and you’ve got today’s title.

You’re looking at the male flowers; the female flowers in this species are on a separate plant. The whole spike shown here, including the part with the leaves, might have been about 2 inches (5cm) long. That makes this one of those lie-on-the-ground-and-aim-slightly-upward sorts of pictures that are so much “fun” to take.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Svelte or streamlined, take your pick

Click for better quality.

Either epithet fits the bud of this rain lily, Cooperia pedunculata, that I photographed along Great Northern Blvd. on August 19.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

More spring wildflowers

Blue curls (Phacelia congesta) along Great Northern Blvd. on February 16. Not blue, say I.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

It’s full-tilt spring, say I

Two days ago I proclaimed that spring has come to Austin. I said it silently to myself because I didn’t want to startle any of the cyclists who kept passing close by in the bike lane on Great Northern Blvd., along which several suddenly flowering spring species included these Engelmann daisies, Engelmannia peristenia. I wonder if the brisk breeze accounted for the wrinkling in so many of the ray flowers.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

More fruits of my labors

I wasn’t surprised to come across some little yellow silverleaf nightshade fruits along Great Northern Blvd. on December 23rd of last year, but balsam gourd vines, Ibervillea lindheimeri, and the little globes they produce (which grow to between 1 and 2 inches in diameter and turn red when they’ve matured) are a much less frequent sight, so I was glad to find a few that day. If you imagine a larger size, you might follow my lead and see this fruit as a slightly under-inflated balloon.

Alternate common names for this plant are balsam-apple, snake-apple, and (Lindheimer’s) globeberry.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Fruits in addition to flowers

It wasn’t only flowers I saw along Great Northern Blvd. on December 23 of last year, but also fruits, notably some from a silverleaf nightshade, Solanum elaeagnifolium. Clouds kept me from catching the Christmas full moon soon afterward, but I have this orb to show for that week.

If you’re reminded of a yellow cherry tomato, it’s because tomatoes are in the same botanical family as nightshades. Many plants in the nightshade family are poisonous, so early European colonists in the Americas originally refused to eat tomatoes. The fear of tomatoes continued in the colonies and back in Europe for a long time afterward. That set me to wondering whether anyone is still afraid of tomatoes.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

And still another wildflower in winter

Above is a flower of Clematis drummondii, which I photographed along Great Northern Blvd. on December 23rd of last year. From the same place and time—to within a few feet and minutes—you’ll find below (and seen from below) the silky strands produced by fertilized female flowers of this species. Eventually those strands turn duller, and in that stage they account for the common name of this vine, old man’s beard.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Yet another winter wildflower

Again from the west side of Great Northern Blvd. on December 23, here’s some wintry cheer incarnate in the flower head of a bush sunflower, Simsia calva.* The blue that partly countervailed the sunlit yellow came from small patches of sky that appeared through the shadowed foliage when I got low and aimed somewhat upward.

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* This doesn’t look like what I think of as a typical Simsia calva flower head, but I found it in a place where I’ve found the species for several years, and the plant’s leaves did look the way I expect bush sunflower leaves to look. Oh well, I’ve always said I’m much more a photographer than a botanist.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman