An Ipomopsis rubra bud

Click for better clarity.

That’s right, an opening bud of Ipomopsis rubra, known as Texas plume or standing cypress. The plant does stand tall and erect, but it’s no cypress. Its finely dissected leaves are the plumes in the other common name.

I took this picture in Blunn Creek Nature Preserve in south Austin on June 13.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman

July 4, 2021

Today being July 4th, here’s a vintage red-white-and-blue picture of Ipomopsis rubra, known as standing cypress and Texas plume. The sky was filled with plumes of its own in Williamson County on that long-ago day (May 20, 2009), so I included both kinds of plumes in the portraits I made.

And here’s a quotation that relates to July 4th:

may it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government. that form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. all eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. the general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view. the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. these are grounds of hope for others. for ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

That’s from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Roger Weightman on June 24, 1826. (I’ve preserved the idiosyncratic punctuation and capitalization of the original.) It was the last letter Jefferson ever wrote. He died on July 4, 1826, as did John Adams. The story (perhaps slightly embellished) has come down to us that Adams’s last words were “Thomas Jefferson lives”; unbeknownst to Adams, however, Jefferson had died hours earlier in Virginia. Was any other simultaneous death ever as symbolic as that of the second and third presidents of the United States, both of whom were deeply involved in creating the Declaration of Independence and seeing it adopted exactly 50 years before the day they died?

© 2021 Steven Schwartzman (whose age today and for a year to come will match the Spirit of ’76).

Standing cypress out of season

From May through June is when we normally expect the bright red flowers of Ipomopsis rubra, known as standing cypress and Texas plume. Yet there it was flowering away on October 23rd at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The purple in the background came from prairie verbena, Glandularia bipinnatifida, a species I see blooming here for much of the year.

And here’s a related quotation for today:

Life moves out of a red flare of dreams
Into a common light of common hours,
Until old age brings the red flare again.
—William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart’s Desire, 1894.

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman

What’s reality, anyhow?

The last post gave you a vintage red-white-and-blue look at a flowering Ipomopsis rubra, called Texas plume and standing cypress. This year I encountered the species for the first time on April 27th, before flowers or even buds had appeared. On the other hand, the firewheels (Gaillardia pulchella) beyond the standing cypress were blazing away, and I knew they’d complement the standing cypress in color and shape. Any red would come from the firewheels, with none from the standing cypress. I went for the feel of what I was seeing rather than trying to keep as much as possible in focus and recording reality—whatever that is. Here are three of the portraits I made that were new takes for me on Ipomopsis rubra.

 

 

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Another July 4th

As I’ve sometimes done for the Fourth of July,
today I’m offering up a red, white, and blue photograph.
It shows standing cypress, Ipomopsis rubra, on May 20, 2009,
at the intersection of Williamson County Rd. 217 and US 183.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Not Flopsy but Ipomopsy

This rigidly tall plant is Ipomopsis rubra, known colloquially as standing cypress and Texas plume. The photograph is from one month ago today at Tejas Camp in Williamson County.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Standing cypress red and green

On May 30th we visited our friends David and Jolyn in Dripping Springs, which lies about an hour west of our home in Austin. On their property I photographed this handsome stand of Ipomopsis rubra, known as standing cypress and Texas plume.

This is the most vividly verdant view of any I’ve shown of standing cypress (all of which you’re welcome to scroll back down through).

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

Red, white, and blue from me to you

Here’s your dose of red, white, and blue for this Fourth of July, which is Independence Day in the United States.

When I visited Tejas Camp in Williamson County on May 14th I found exactly one Ipomopsis rubra flowering. Other plants of the species were there, but only this one had matured enough to blossom. Common names for the species are standing cypress and Texas plume, both of which make reference to the plant’s feathery (i.e. finely dissected) leaves, a few of which you can glimpse in the lower portion of the photograph.

(By the way: if yesterday’s second post perplexed you, it perplexed me too. I was away from home and using the WordPress app on an iPhone to answer a comment, but somehow my reply went out as a post instead. Mea culpa.)

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman

Standing cypress flower fallen but still standing

From my standing height I looked down at the ground and saw a standing cypress flower, which I didn’t understand and somehow thought was sprouting. But that’s not how Ipomopsis rubra grows, and when I got low and close I saw the truth of the matter: this flower had fallen from a standing cypress plant but was still standing, at least if you make an allowance for the fact that it didn’t touch the ground.

My misunderstanding followed by understanding took place at the Blunn Creek Nature Preserve in south Austin on June 13. Today’s photograph gives you the closest look yet at an individual flower of this species, which is also known as Texas plume and red Texas star.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman

Standing cypress flower

Click for better clarity.

In the last post you saw an Ipomopsis rubra bud, and now you get to see what one of those buds turns into. If I tell you that rubra means red in Latin , I don’t think you’ll be surprised. In contrast, I think you will be surprised to learn that this plant is in the same botanical family as the cut-leaf gilia from a couple of months ago, which was low and tiny. Despite the differences, botanists classify both species in the Polemoniaceae, or phlox family. If you’d like to reinforce the contrast between these two oh-so-different relatives, you’re welcome to look back at a view from last year that gives you a good sense of how tall and slender a standing cypress plant is, and how splendid one can be when it’s covered with flowers.

As was true of yesterday’s photo, this one comes from the Blunn Creek Nature Preserve on June 13.

If you’re interested in photography as a craft, you’ll find that points 1, 3, 5, and 7 in About My Techniques are relevant to this picture.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman