arnanthescout's Favourites

According to Gould and Jansen, "some populations of S. hedyotidea in central Texas growing in moist areas (e.g., river banks) display S. texana-like characters, having
larger, membranaceous leaves and little stem pubescence." Since there are no collections of S. texana from Travis County (the closest being Gonzales County), we may have to assume that these Spigelia here are S. hedyotidea until proven otherwise.

I presented this morning in Duncanville, and I wasn't able to attend the Anemone bioblitz at the cemetery (nor the rescheduled date for the 23rd!), so I did want to jump over there after the presentation to look a bit. What a cool cemetery!

I like to get started early (in the Winter) pulling weeds out of my yard. One of the annual weeds that is earliest to germinate is Common Hedge Parsely (HP), a.k.a. Sockbane (illustrated here). Unfortunately, the seedlings are extremely similar to those of the native and desirable Chervil. Every winter, I go through the same routine of looking carefully to remind myself of how to tell apart the seedlings of these two Apiaceae plants. So for you gardeners out there who want to get an early start removing Hedge Parsley while retaining Chervil, here's how I recognize the difference:
-- The seedlings of the two species have a very slightly different "look". This seems to be a combination of two fine details of the new leaves: The number of ultimate divisions of each leaf segment of Chervil are fewer, often just 3, and the ultimate segments often have an obtuse angle behind the short point on each. These ultimate, 3-parted segments can look like miniature Sassafras leaves, if you're familiar with that tree. On HP, the ultimate segments of each leaf division are usually more numerous (often 5) and they typically have an acute tip behind the short point on each.
-- In the earliest, tiniest seedlings (one or two leaves), the narrow cotyledons of Chervil are proportionately longer than those of HP (last photo in this set). They are on very long "petioles" and they reach or exceed the size of the first real leaf or two. By contrast, the narrow cotyledons of HP are shorter and on shorter "petioles"; they are quickly exceeded by the petioles of the first few leaves.
These basic differences are illustrated in this array of images.

I had previously uploaded a comparison of the seedlings of two very similar, early Spring members of the carrot family.
Common Hedge Parsley: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/103470306
Hairyfruit Chervil: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/103470307
At present, iNat's Computer Vision has not learned how to distinguish images of the foliage of these two species. As a result, there are hundreds of misidentified observations. Here I compare larger plants of both species, prior to their blooming.

On Common Hedge Parsely, note in particular the more acutely pointed ultimate leaf segments and the short, scratchy, retrorse (downwards-pointing) pubescence on petioles. At the latitude of central Texas, the leaves by this time of year have typically grown larger than those of Chervil.

Here are some of my original photos of the Travis County Trillium plant. I first discovered the plant on March 22, 1984 (first two images). I came back to measure the plant on March 24 (3rd - 5th images), and over the next few days invited several botanists and friends to view and photograph the plant. The 6th image (3/25/84) shows Dr. Marshall Johnston documenting the plant. The 7th image shows a young and curious Greg Lasley wondering what all the fuss is about.

Brushy Creek/Champion Park
4/21/2017
Geranium sp.

I saw a number of these Geraniums around Williamson county in 2017 and unknowingly took shots of them in previous years as well. At first glance they look like G. carolinianum. However, they have 5 purple anthers instead of the 10 yellow anthers of G. carolinianum.

The only Geranium I have found in the literature which has only 5 anthers is G. pusillum. However, other characteristics of this plant, such as the pubescense on the sepals and pedicels and also the petal shape is different from what is described for G. pusillum. In fact the pubescence on these plants is a much better match for G. texanum (minute appressed hairs abaxially on the sepal veins mostly with retrorse appressed hairs on the pedicels), which is what I thought these plants were until I noticed the 5 purple anthers.

As mentioned, I have seen them in various places around Williamson county from out near Camp Tejas in the western part to Brushy Creek and Berry Springs more centrally and also Granger Lake in the east. However, though they appear to be somewhat common in Wilco, I have not been able to find any other Geranium observations in Texas on iNat that seem to match these (though only a small percentage of observations have photos good enough to use). Anyway, I thought I'd tag some of the frequent observers of Wilco plants and the surrounding areas to keep their eye out for this one. If anyone happens to have any other clues what it might be, that would be great, but I'd also like to see if the range is any greater than what I have seen.

Several individuals are growing along the trail through the woods near JD Creek in moderately burned areas. Full shade, sandy soil. Associated plants: Tragia ramosa, Phytolacca americana, Smilax smallii, Pinus taeda.

Williamson County, Brush Creek Trail
4/20/2018
Chamaesaracha edwardsiana

Occurring in patches and sporadically along this section of the trail. These fit the classic description of C. edwardsiana, including the pedicels having short mostly glandular hairs mixed with simple hairs, the stems being sparsely pubescent with branched hairs, and the leaves being mostly glabrous.

The bark is loose and hanging in long strips. 4th photo- with a close look, the little brown pimple-like glands can be seen on the scales near my little finger. 5th photo shows the glands with magnification.

@carolyn150 ,@williampines , @kesalp - This is a close up of the little glands that we were looking at with the loupes in the field yesterday. They are oval, lighter green than the rest of the scale and flat, not raised.
Ash juniper, more likely seen west of I-35, has glands that are round, raised like a pimple, and sometimes brown in color.

Source: http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=ZAHI2.

Note: According to Flora of NC Texas, twigs and leaf rachises densely to sparsely spreading-pubescent (latter extreme is the common form in nc TX); leaflets with shallow, rounded teeth. When I zoom in on the closeup photo of the leaflets, those are the characteristics that I see.

The native Texas Lantana is a common "understory" shrub in the thorn brush of this region. Blooming abundantly in late October and an important nectar plant for many butterflies.
UPDATE: Added a 4th image to show the spatulate bractlets under the flowers/fruits.

Noting invasives down for later use.

Bad—no, very bad. This one mature enough to be fruiting... and all those fruits will cause a lot of trouble. In the case of an invasive removal project, this one is going out first.

Travis county, Texas; Austin, Decker Tallgrass Prairie Bioblitz
5/21/2022
Zeltnera texensis

Common in some of the shorter grassy areas. This specimen was one of the taller ones I saw on the day, actually exhibiting a fair amount of unbranched stem basally, unlike many specimens of this species.

The technical way of differentiating Zeltneras from Centauriums is by the shape and amount of separation of the stigma lobes. These details are unfortunately difficult to photograph, especially on Zeltneras where they are typically smaller. These were taken with a 100mm macro at 1:1 and cropped 50%. I actually couldn't tell if they were in focus when taking the photographs. Many were not.

Pore near the apex of the capsule, seeds ca. 0.5 mm, biconvex, smooth and polished. Most nodes include a cleistogamous flower. Final photo is a comparison of T. texana seeds on the left (small, dark, quadrangular, with reticulate, rough surface) and T. biflora seeds on the right.

Williamson County, Tx; Berry Springs Park
9/24/2018
Physalis cinerascens

Always difficult from the literature to really distinguish P. cinerascens from P. mollis, but on most of this plant (with the exception of the calyx) the hairs are not obscuring the surface, so going with P. cinerascens.

Only about 5-6 species this could be based on location.

Diagnostic or useful features to ID as E. modestus include: scale-like phyllaries with many fine hairs that stick out; strigose stem that is reddish proximally; withered basal leaves during flowering; leaves gradually reduced distally, very strigose distally; lower leaves toothed near ends; ray and disc florets match description in literature re number and color; plant is growing next to rocky driveway (species likes gravelly sites).

Day # 4 - ECRTMN Weekly "Let's Get Outside!" activity suggestion: Make at least one iNat observation every day.
Good or bad, this grass population is increasing in the open area between the yard fence and the stock tank.

Yellow-flowered mallow, auriculate bracts underneath sepals (auriculate=ear-lobe like lobe, so the base of bracts are lobe shaped) , 6-10-rayed stellate hairs on stems/underside of leaves (need 10X lens to see), and reddish immature fruits.

I was out checking the rainlilies when THIS popped into my view near the drainage area. I couldn't believe it for a minute! This species of milkweed! Here! The entire time! How is it possible that I've never seen this until now? Based on the size it appears to have been here for quite a while. Where did it even come from? I don't even think there are any other observations of this species here...

First all those rainlilies, now this. The rain last weekend has really worked miracles.
I'm going to check some of the other swampy areas to see if there could be more...

This is really what I love about plants though. Even when you think you've seen everything somewhere, something new and spectacular will pop up!

Edit: I was wrong. RIP. Unfortunately it turned out to be nonnative Tropical Milkweed rather than the uncommon Butterfly Weed. But then again, another thing I love about plants: there's always plenty of room to learn!

I was watching this butterfly for a while. It was flying around, quite jittery of outside movement, when it suddenly stopped, fluttered in circles around a nearby oak (I believe a planted Quercus sinuata) before landing on the truck. I decided to try and get a few photos of it before it would inevitably noticed my presence and scatter off again. but surprisingly, it did not seem bothered by my presence as I moved closer to try and get better shots.

It was around this time I noticed its proboscis sticking out from the camera screen. Perplexed at what it was tasting, I peered around my phone to see, and noticed the sap oozing out of the broken twig it was resting on. The butterfly was feeding on the sap, probing its proboscis between the torn fibers and thoroughly enjoying itself.

In fact, there must have been something in the sap, either a lot of sugar, or maybe some fermentation, because it started to unstably totter around a bit. Almost like it was high on the sugar or something similar! Likely the reason it didn't notice or react to my presence was due to its thorough enjoyment of its lucky find. So engrossed was it in its behavior that a lucky bird could've easily snatched it up! Though it does look like it may have already had some past experiences with birds.

It happened that I found these two commonly confused rain lilies right beside each other! Too good an opportunity to miss. You really get a good comparison of how they differ from each other. Not sure if I should get this to species. These sorts of photos can come in handy.

Duplicate with https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/149740100, ID for flower on the left/bottom.

I went down to Austin TPWD headquarters to get a replacement truck -- the previous one had over 100K miles, so I got a new one! :) On the way back north, I visited this incredible park, Bull Creek District Park, to see some of the plants that Andy, Eric, and Joshua (among others) have seen. Really cool place.