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Texas Prairie Dawn (Hymenoxys texana) | Wildflower Wednesday
Ozark Milkvetch, Astragalus distortus Aquatic Pygmyweed, Crassula aquatica Rose Bluet, Houstonia rosea After more than a decade of wanting to see Texas prairie dawn (Hymenoxys texana), Chris and I were finally able to see a population of the plants in western Harris County last spring. They’ve been on our survey lists for years when we work in certain areas of the state, primarily the Houston region, but no one in our office had seen them yet. I’d been looking during my cemetery botanizing the last few years in SW Montgomery county and NW Harris county but never came up with anything. Thankfully, someone pointed us in the right direction to…
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Hello out there.
Hi blog readers, if you are still out there. I didn’t meant to ghost you since the last post in August but it was a necessity. I spent that time finishing my book and turned it in last week. I mean, it’s done but of course it will need some editing and there are some accessory documents I need to work on in the next few weeks to keep the publishing process moving along. I’m not here to write about all of that but will at some point in time. This is mostly an “I”m alive” post. And still unsure what to do with the blog. I feel a lot…
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Country Dirt Road Botanical Finds
Gaillardia aestivalis winkleri, white firewheel White firewheel with a nectaring little yellow, Eurema lisa This is a locally uncommon to rare grass, Gymnopogon ambiguus, bearded skeletongrass. I’ve only ever seen it over on the Big Sandy Creek Unit of the Big Thicket. I suspect it may be more common in some of these areas but people generally ignore grasses. Oenothera rhombipetala, fourpoint evening primrose A few weekends ago, Chris took a random dirt road that his GPS said to take to get to the Beaver Slide Trail in the Big Thicket. It was a pleasant drive, lots of interesting plants to look at outside the window. Then we entered a…
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Late July at Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve
Geraldine’s cabin, steady through the seasons. Hibiscus aceuleatus, pineland hibiscus Marshallia graminifolia, Grass-leaved Barbara’s buttons A few of some of the Platanthera chapmanii, Chapman’s fringed orchids along the boardwalk Two of the Chapman’s in bloom. Ascelpias rubra The boardwalk down near the pond. When it cools off I’d like to sit down here and read or paint at some point. The beginning of liatris season. Some scenes from a quick trip to the Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve back in July. It was a quick trip but there was quite a bit blooming as you can see. I wrote a different post over on Substack with about similar things that…
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Greenland By Air
In July we went to Iceland for a vacation. On our flight from Keflavík to Chicago we flew over the southern tip of Greenland. I played my hand right when the three of us all decided who would get the window seat during which flight before we left and managed to choose the perfect flight for my position next to the window. Cloud cover quickly obscured the view as we moved inland over the island but I saw enough to be smitten with the icebergs and glaciers I saw, especially having just spent over a week in Iceland. I never wrote about Ecuador from last summer and I don’t know…
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Summer Luna
Actias luna at Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve. July 27, 2025 Fluttering through noon, landing low. Crunching leaves, soft. Off, into the wind.
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Blog Evolutions
Little Pine Island Bayou, Lance Rosier Unit, Big Thicket National Preserve Hello out there! It’s been more than a few months since I’ve written here. This blog has been in fluctuation for at least the last five years as I’ve slowly stopped writing frequently to the point of not writing at all. I’m still writing, just elsewhere. In all honesty, I’m trying to figure out what to do with the blog. It’s time for it to evolve. I’m hesitant to move a lot of it offline because there’s a lot of trip and hiking reports that might be useful to someone doing a google search. And I pilfer through here…
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Finding All the Plants
It’s spring and so I am in my happy space–there are PLANTS BLOOMING AND MORE TO COME! I’ve been out hiking a lot recently, trying to wrap up what remains of trails for my Big Thicket region hiking guidebook, and so I have been seeing a lot of interesting plants and sights recently. I’ve essentially given up on trying to keep this blog to the detail I used to be able to and so this is what you are going to get from me now (this is a note for future me when I get mad at past me for not writing about such and such thing.). My favorite place…
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January 2024 Reads
January started off as a really good month for reading. I set my goal for 40 books again this year, back up from 30 last year. I’m intending to go into this year reading good books and by that I mean by reading books I want to read and especially more fiction. I think I’ve read a bunch of filler books in recent years which have been less appetizing to the reading palate than I thought they would be. I’m going to get back into monthly or quarterly summaries here so I hope those who enjoy reading will also like this! And as always, please share what you are reading.…
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Snow Day
After a week of forecasts for snow, late Monday evening finally arrived and the first inklings of the proposed 2-5″ of snow in our region arrived. The forecast went up and down for days, but mostly stayed in the 2-4″ range for us, though some areas closer to the coast said they would have 6″+. That never really materialized in Texas but it sure did in parts of Louisiana! There were some veritable snow drifts from an internet acquaintance in New Orleans and her kids even managed to have a decent sledding experience on the side of an overpass hill near their house! For us, Forest finally got to use…
