Pedernales River Explorations Part II

Palafoxia callosa

Cooperia drummondii

Pluchea

white mist flower—not sure, one of these three–> Ageratum, Conoclinium, Eupatorium I couldn’t find a white version in my Texas wildflowers book(s).

Senna lindheimeriana

While Chris fishes along the Pedernales, I usually take time to poke around the fringes of the rocks to see what plants or invertebrate wildlife may be lurking about to photograph. Sometimes Forest is with me playing in the rocks or whatnot, but as he’s gotten older he’s been able to follow directions and stay around with Chris while Chris fishes. We were out one morning along the river and as I was poking about looking at the early fall wildflowers making their home in the dry, rocky fringes of the river banks, I noticed an odd flowing section of water off to the side with wetland vegetation intermingled. It hadn’t rained recently and the river hadn’t been up so I thought it was strange. I followed it up and realized it was a seep coming out of the ground! So cool! I had never noticed it before in our other visits so this was a great find. I’ll be checking on it again in the future! It’s not too often you come across a spring. Often you will see springs noted on historical topo maps but so many of those have been destroyed or dried up due to various pressures such as logging, filling, ground water loss, etc. I’m reading a historical fiction book right now based on the Buffalo Soldiers working in SW Texas and they talk about actively destroying water sources that the local tribes were using as way to eliminate the tribes or force them onto reservations. So, there’s that, too.

Well, hopefully I don’t take nearly a year to write posts about our trips any longer, though you know, I do have some photos still from our trip to Seattle in 2012! hah!