Posts Tagged ‘flower’
Golden dalea
Posting that picture of the springwater dancer damselfly yesterday reminded me that I’d forgotten to show you something else I photographed on August 1 out at the Doeskin Ranch in Burnet County. It’s a wildflower called golden dalea or golden prairie clover, Dalea aurea, which makes its debut here today.*
How about that sinuous inflorescence? It’s as soft to the touch as it looks. Call it Texas’s answer to the pussy willow, and you’ll get no argument from me.
On a historical and counter-confusionary note: this genus was named for the English apothecary, physician, and geologist Samuel Dale, whereas the better known dahlia ended up getting named after the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl.
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* Two other species of Dalea have appeared in these pages: Dalea enneandra and Dalea formosa.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
Speaking of prairie agalinis…
Speaking of prairie agalinis (Agalinis heterophylla), as I did briefly last time, here’s a view of that wildflower in its own right along the upper stretch of Bull Creek on September 12th. The pink cloud is an out-of-focus vision of more prairie agalinis flowers in the background.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
From white to yellow
Last time you saw the white of a rain lily. Now here’s the yellow-orange of a backlit copper lily, Habranthus tubispathus, that I found at Southeast Metropolitan Park on September 1. The backlighting silhouettes some of the flower’s inner parts.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
Spider shadows
I don’t think I’ve ever recorded such a vivid and elongated spider shadow as I did on this rain-lily, Cooperia pedunculata, that I photographed on August 19 near the eastern end of Balcones Woods Dr. You may find me strangely unobservant, but I was so intent on getting the spider in focus that I don’t believe I noticed its shadow at the time.
If you’d like a closer look at the spider and its happily-discovered-later shadow, click the excerpt below.
If you’re interested in the craft of photography, you’ll find that point 24 in About My Techniques applies to the larger image.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
White against pink
White: a small snail.
Pink: mountain pink, Centaurium beyrichii.
Date: June 25.
Place: Capital of Texas Highway.
If you’re interested in photography as a craft, you’ll find that points 1, 2, and especially 5 and 20 in About My Techniques are relevant to today’s picture.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
And what is so rare as a day in June?*
Make that: And what is so rare on a day in June? Answer: Castilleja sessiliflora, known as downy yellow painted cup, which I photographed at Illinois Beach State Park on June 9th. In identifying this wildflower for me, Melissa Pierson quoted Swink and Wilhelm: “An extremely rare plant in our area…. Probably the world’s easternmost colony of the natural range of this species occurs near Zion in Lake County, Illinois, where it grows in sandy soil….” Here’s a closer look from lower down:
Most Castilleja species I’ve seen in person or in pictures have had reddish-orange bracts. The closest in color that any central Texas Castilleja species comes to what you see in this photograph is Castilleja purpurea var. citrina.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
* The title is the opening line of a once-well-known poem by the once-well-known American poet James Russell Lowell.
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
That which we call a rose
It may be the case that that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet, but changing out the sense of smell for that of sight, here’s an already faded native rose that I made a non-traditional portrait of at Illinois Beach State Park on June 7th.
As for which species this was, Melissa Pierson wrote: “There are 3 species of native roses that grow along the beach and the river: Rosa blanda, R. carolina, and R. palustris. They all bloom there at about the same time, and their habitats intermingle, and they are very difficult to differentiate, but my guess would be that we saw R. blanda.”
That said, I hope you won’t find this portrait bland.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
One result of rain
One result of the week of rainy weather we’ve had in Austin is that a new crop of rain-lilies, Cooperia drummondii, has emerged. Here’s one that I photographed in Great Hills Park yesterday.
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
Euphorbia corollata
At Illinois Beach State Park on June 9th I found a flowering spurge plant, Euphorbia corollata. The species name is Latin for ‘having a small crown,’ and Melissa Pierson, who identified the species for me, noted that “when a little further along the little white flowers form a crown above the stem. Abundant at Illinois Beach, I don’t find it anywhere else.” Today’s photograph is a downward-looking view at one of those small white crowns, which was about a quarter of an inch across (6mm).
© 2016 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 