Texas
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The Royal Fern Bog
There’s a pretty unique area where we are working called the Royal Fern Bog. It is a cypress and tupelo swamp covered in lizard’s tail (the white flowers in the photos) and royal ferns, Osmunda regalis. I shot these several weeks ago and I’m really happy with the very first one. It will probably make it to the Wildscape site. Enjoy the bog!
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Prairie Fest 2011 Recap
It’s been over a week since Prairie Fest happened and I’m just now getting around to blogging it, but here it is! It was a gorgeous day, albeit windy, but still beautiful. Storms plagued the evening, but we were there during the pre-lunch hours so it was great during that time. The place was crawling by the time we arrived and got even busier by the time we ran back after lunch to pick up some free plants from a scout troop that we forgot to pick up when we left the first time. Lots of dogs out and about in the park. The fest was set up primarily along…
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Big Thicket Pitcher Plant Trail
On our way home from Beaumont we stopped by the Pitcher Plant Trail in the Turkey Creek Unit of the Big Thicket. We showed up just after sunrise, Chris was a bit miffed we didn’t get there a few minutes prior, but I think it worked out anyway. We’d been to this trail before last November but the pitcher plants weren’t blooming or looking too swift. Now they were blooming and looking great! It’s only about an hour from Beaumont so I’m sure we’ll end up there again during our next two months in Beaumont. I tried the white background thing again but it wasn’t that great, however I got…
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Silent Sunday—Swallow-tailed Kite edition
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Prairie Fest—April 23, 2011
We didn’t make it last year but hope to this year. Wanted to pass the information on so maybe you can, too! If not, you should at least check out Tandy Hills sometime!
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Swamp Creatures
Today we had an amazing animal day despite our really crappy day of trying to get to our points to collect data. We ended up waist deep in thick floton (floating plant matter) in some areas and it was not pleasant. Sometime floton is thick enough to actually walk on, carefully, but this kind was not too thick and breaking through it was inevitable. That means you then post-hole through the floton moving at an incredibly slow pace. It was not pretty. However, we were able to get some awesome shots of animals today, including this alligator snapping turtle up on shore to lay eggs. She was ginormous!! And then…
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More Swamp Work
Where Chris and I are working reminds us a bit of a mix of the Everglades, which I think mentioned in the last Swamp Work post. It isn’t common to walk through thickets of cut grass, getting cut up by it as we walk through. And then there is the mud slogging. Sometimes we’re able to walk through areas with a mostly hard bottom, albeit a little muddy, but then we get in areas that are 1-2′ thick of floating plants and root matter and once you break through that it’s mud on the bottom. Then you slog through that. Previously these areas in the ‘glades would’ve been accessed by…
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Texas Wildflowers: Lupinus texensis, the Texas bluebonnet
The second in a series on wildflowers: Texas bluebonnets are the ubiquitous sign that spring has sprung in Texas. Well, there area few other signs, but when you are driving down the highway and see the flowers blooming, you know it’s time to start digging in the dirt and pulling out the shorts—maybe! The bluebonnet is one of five state flowers. That is, all five lupine species are considered the state flower! Texas bluebonnet story. A few years ago I grew some in a container in Florida. They did pretty good for the climate and some day I’d love to grow them again. Of course there are the beautiful fields…
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Texas Wildflowers: Castilleja indivisa, Texas/Indian paintbrush
The first in a series on Texas wildflowers. The commonly known Indian Paintbrush is almost as famous as it’s wildflower friend the Texas Bluebonnet. The bright red of the paintbrush is usually in a field alongside of its more popular friend. The red and blue are a symbol that spring has definitely arrived in Texas! This native annual can be grown from seed in your own yard if you so wanted. The red of the plant is actually not the flower but bracts surrounding the smaller, less conspicuous flower. In the field we photographed we found a magenta variety in the mix… *later edit*: I actually think this might be…
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Corallorhiza wisteriana, spring coralroot orchid
After finding the flowering plant of spring coralroot orchid at Texoma a week ago Chris and I wanted to find more to get better photos. I asked the folks at Tandy Hills if they’d seen any there but they answered with a negative. My next step was to ask the Fort Worth Nature Center and I got a positive answer. We weren’t quite sure where we might find them other than near the river area and in shaded leaf litter so we set off for the Riverbottom trail. We walked for twenty minutes or so and then Chris spotted some that already had seed pods. *drat*. We kept walking and…