Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

July at Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve

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At the end of July, Chris and I went over to Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve to do some archival document scanning for the weekend. Forest was in DFW with grandparents and it provided the opportunity to do this work without the angst of an almost 9 year old wondering when mom and dad were going to be done with their boring volunteer work!

I actually didn’t get to walk around the Preserve that much because I was mostly stuck inside the gallery scanning—plus it was hot—but I did get out and see things a few times to take a breather.

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The area that was prescribed burned earlier this year is coming back really well.

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Can you feel the heat here??? And it was so dry. I know there has been some rain over there recently but I’m not sure how much it has done to rectify the drought conditions.

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A sweet bumble bee on large-flowered false foxglove, Aureolaria grandiflora, a plant I’ve wanted to see for several years now. I had no idea it was at the Preserve until Chris came back from walking around one morning and told me!

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There were many interesting documents with legendary Texas/southern botanists and naturalists, including this inscription from Marshall Johnston and Scooter Cheatham!

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Another bumble enjoying the potato vine, Ipomoea pandurata.

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We tried mothing Saturday night and boy, it was bad. If May was pretty good, then this was abysmal. The heat and dry conditions were not favorable for much of the moths it seems. This was the coolest moth I saw, a smaller parasa moth, Parasa chloris.

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It was perfect timing, however, for Chapman’s orchid, Platanthera chapmanii, which I had never seen blooming before! They were gorgeous and hopefully I’ll get the photos on my camera edited soon.

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I did spend some time in Geraldine’s cabin as we tried to look for any documents or photos that would need to be scanned. I had never been inside before and it was such a time capsule. What a wonderful get-away it must have been for her, too.

I haven’t had a chance to start organizing the digital files and hope to do that this fall as the daylight hours shrink. More time inside means I can settle in with an audiobook while I name and organize the files. I’m hoping there may be folks out there who might have documents pertaining to her and the Preserve that they would be interested in scanning and sending to me or giving to me to scan. It would be a good preservation of the history of her life and the Preserve. I know we don’t have nearly everything that I was hoping for—I was hoping for more documents about her work creating the Big Thicket—but maybe those will surface at some point in the future.

3 Comments

  • sonnia hill

    Great photos at the Preserve. I was just looking at some of my July photos from Geraldine’s. So much beauty.

    I look foward to reading and seeing the photos on your archival work on Geraldine.

  • shoreacres

    I sure enough can feel that heat! I was so pleased to get some nice photos of the Chapman’s orchids, too — if only I could get myself motivated and organized to get them up! I’m so hoping that we get some widespread rain this weekend. I know it’s a holiday weekend, but I’d rather celebrate rain and forgo the barbeque or whatever. It’s just been a hard summer, for so many people. There’s something about coping with such heat that saps the spirit as much as the body!

  • Judy

    Somehow I just saw this post. That orchid is something else and I thought it looked like a ginger. Then I enlarged the photo to get a good look, which is very different.

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