Afternoon Ramble at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center

Let’s reverse a few months and blow off some dust on a draft post I’ve had sitting here since May and head to Nacogdoches and the Pineywoods Native Plant Center. The last time we were here was in 2014, though I feel like I’ve been to Nacogdoches since then and haven’t dropped by the Native Plant Center.

Chris was working in Angelina National Forest and so Forest and I drove up over a weekend to visit him. On our way we stopped at the Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin, which I had only really seen at night when Chris and I went for a Zoo Brew event in 2013. Chris got off work and we meandered around the wetland area adjacent to their nursery area at the Native Plant Center and then proceeded to go for a jaunt on the trails. It was mid-May so heat and humidity was just ramping up, though still tolerable for short hikes. Oh, I’m longing for cooler weather, though not so much that I want to speed time up yet. I’m noticing signs for that tilt towards autumn, however.

I identified as many of the plants here as I could, though if you don’t see an id on a plant outright (not the woodland scenes) then I couldn’t figure it out. Give it a whirl if you think you know what it is!

Maybe Joe-Pye weed? Eutrochium fistulosum

Chomped up hibiscus

Passiflora incarnata in bloom

Nursery area

Long leaf pine in its Lorax phase

Physostegia correllii

Giant coneflower, Rudbeckia grandiflora

Wild bergamot, Monarda fistulosa

Baptisia, maybe alba?

Elderflower, Sambucus canadensis

Iris virginica

Virginia creeper creepin’.

Arisaema dracontium, green dragon

More elderflower

Green dragon

Oakleaf hydrangea, which I’m dying over because I just dug up what was left of ours, it was just a couple of inches tall and a few leaves. It tries to grow back every year but the deer find it and just ravage it. It’s going to have to stay in a pot on the potting bench or get re-homed.

Indian plantain, Arnoglossum plantagineum

Texas trailing phlox, Phlox nivalis subsp. texensis

Echinacea sanguinea, sanguine purple coneflower

Stokes aster, Stokesia laevis, another plant I wish we could keep but the deer chow.

If you find yourself in east Texas this is a great stop for plant nerds!