Four-nerve daisy portraits 3 and 4

Here are the final two portraits in this series of four four-nerve daisies, Tetraneuris linearifolia, that I made at the West Pickle Campus of the University of Texas in north Austin on March 18. For the picture above I aimed horizontally toward a deeply shaded area. For the one below I aimed with a wide aperture toward plants far enough away to leave no details, with the result that the daisy’s green stalk is even less noticeable than the stalk in the darker portrait, and the second flower head almost seems to float disembodiedly in green space.

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman

Four-nerve daisy portrait 2

Here’s a portrait of a four-nerve daisy, Tetraneuris linearifolia, that I made by getting on the ground at the West Pickle Campus in north Austin on March 18 and aiming up into a gray-white sky, which I normally hate to do. The low light would allow only a shallow depth of field; I chose to focus on the fuzzy green center of the flower head, knowing that little else would come out in focus.

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: Hooker’s mountain daisy

At the Orokonui Ecosanctuary northeast of Dunedin on February 27th we saw some Hooker’s mountain daisies (Celmisia hookeri), a species classified as being at risk. Notice the white-margined leaves.

As with many other plants in the sunflower family, this one’s flower heads give way to puffball-type seed heads.

After the seeds fall away, the remains are rather sculptural:

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Cowpen daisy

At Guadalupe River State Park on September 29th I found a cowpen daisy plant (Verbesina encelioides) that was flowering. Dig those dark shadows.

Only once before has Verbesina encelioides appeared in these pages. Does the genus name sound familiar? Perhaps it’s because frostweed is also in that genus.

As attractive as the flower heads of the cowpen daisy are, the plant has an unpleasant odor.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Stop and smell the nerve-ray

On September 12 along a trail following the upper reaches of Bull Creek I found a few late-in-the-season flower heads of Tetragonotheca* texana, known as nerve-ray or square-bud daisy (did you notice the green square?). While most species of yellow daisies—and there’s a slew of them in central Texas—don’t have much of a scent, this one is fragrant, so I always make myself stop and smell the nerve-ray.

In the United States the aptly named T. texana grows only in Texas. Travis County, where Austin is, marks the northeastern corner of the species’ range. Lucky us.

– – – – – – – – – –

* A tetragon is a four-angled figure: Greek tetra = 4 and gon = angle (and theca = a place to put something, a receptacle, a case). Notice that the more common Latin-derived word quadrilateral names the figure for its four sides rather than its four angles.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Katydid nymph on prairie fleabane daisy

Prairie fleabane daisy = Erigeron modestus.

Place: Bluegrass Dr.

Date: April 4.

Update: BugGuide.net has identified this as a katydid in the subfamily Phaneropterinae

© Steven Schwartzman