Haven’t shown you this for a good while

2014 was the last time I showed you a flower of the pearl milkweed vine, Matelea reticulata. To compensate for that long lapse, here you have not one but two pearl milkweed flowers I photographed on a vine in my neighborhood on June 22nd. What happy propinquity.

If these flowers weren’t so common here, they’d be rare.* What I mean is that while pearl milkweed readily grows in northwest Austin, it’s easy to forget how seldom we see green flowers, much less any that possess net-like patterns and have a tiny pearly shelter covering their center. Notice that the central structure is curvily pentagonal, with each vertex gesturing toward the tip of a pointy petal. Milkweeds speak in fives.**

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* Google turned up no hits for “If they weren’t so common, they’d be rare,” so I’ll claim that witticism.

** In this case Google says I’ve just spoken a novel four-word sentence about fiveness.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

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New Zealand: Kahikatea

The little reserve in central Christchurch known as Riccarton Bush is home to some trees known botanically as Dacrycarpus dacrydioides, in Māori as kahikatea, and in English as white pine. Unlike the many imported species of pine covering so much of New Zealand, this tree is native. In fact, as you can see from the plaque at the end of this post, the kahikatea is the tallest native tree in the country.

The roots of some of the venerable kahikatea trees I saw on March 1st were impressive. Judging from what I’ve found on the Internet, I haven’t been alone in photographing these very ones:

Here’s an informational plaque that stands in Riccarton Bush:

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: fern with sporangia

Look at the prominent sporangia (spore-bearing bumps) that I saw on this fern frond in Queenstown on February 21st.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: the colors on the cliffs at Tunnel Beach

Close looks in the opposite direction from the one in yesterday’s view revealed colors in the mosses, minerals, and lichens near the base of the cliffs at Tunnel Beach on February 26th.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Old plainsman buds opening

Again from the strip of land between Arboretum Blvd. and Loop 360 on March 14th, here are some opening buds of old plainsman (Hymenopappus scabiosaeus). Don’t you find them sculptural?

As with the previous image, I had to lie down to take this photograph, given that the small buds were little more than a foot (0.3m) above the ground. Unlike the Indian paintbrush and bluebonnet shown in the last post, old plainsman is a native plant that few people pay attention to, much less appreciate. On the contrary, I suspect many consider it a weed. Not I.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Finally a redwood

After teasing you here with pictures from redwood preserves, first the Armstrong Grove and then Muir Woods, I’m finally providing a clear shot of a California redwood tree, Sequoia sempervirens, from Big Basin Redwoods State Park on October 31. This species produces the tallest trees in the world, even if in today’s photo you’re looking only at the base of one. I was attracted by the way the orange patches on the redwood’s trunk, along with the dry redwood leaves fallen on the ground, contrasted not only with the green of the moss on the tree but also and even more so with the greater greenery of the forest beyond.

Click below to zoom in on the orange area.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Temperate forest

When we visited the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve in Guerneville, California, on October 27th, we encountered rain. That’s not unusual in a temperate cloud forest, but it meant we couldn’t enjoy, nor I photograph, the redwood trees the way we’d hoped to. There were times when Eve held one umbrella over herself and another over me so I could take some pictures. Many of the resulting photographs were so-so, given the rain and the low light, but near the end of our stay the rain tapered off for a while and I made this lush picture of lace lichen (Ramalina menziesii) hanging from the trees.

While preparing this post I learned that in 2015 California made Ramalina menziesii its official state lichen. I searched online but didn’t turn up any other state that has chosen an official lichen. Oh, California.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman