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Posts from the ‘Flora’ Category

Apr 20

Plateau Morning Glory

Because of the narrow leaves, I’m venturing a guess this is Plateau Morning Glory. I’ve been calling it Texas Bindweed but according to SEInet, that’s a smaller darker pink flower which I also photographed last week in Rackensack Canyon. I love that place! Anyway…when the sun is really bright and almost overhead, try shooting at a very wide aperture. It does something nice to the strong light. For this image, I shot with a Canon 70-200 IS at f/2.8. The ISO was at 200 so my shutterspeed was 1/3200 of a second. Plenty fast enough to negate any camera movement.

Apr 19

High Hopes

This marks the first year I’ve been able to fully enjoy my non-native cactus blooms thanks to Javelina Cafe. The first blooms were great! Up next and full of fat buds are the Echinopsis huascha (upper right – red), Echinopsis Hybrid (lower left – much larger salmon) and a couple of non-native Prickly Pears. One funky purple (bottom right) with extra long purple spines has yellow flowers. The other (upper left) has gorgeous rose-like pink flowers. I’ve only seen it bloom once! So far the (less than ideal height) fence has held off the Javelina but all these juicy buds will be a real test 🙂

Apr 18

Wildflower-Photography Walk

Yesterday, along with botanical expert Steve Jones, I led a Photography/Wildflower walk to Brown’s Ranch. Not many flowers to see this year so this Desert Holly (Acourtia nana) was a real treat. My wide angle lens was almost touching the plant which makes it look larger than it is but in reality, they’re so tiny, they are almost impossible to spot unless you know what you’re looking for.

Apr 14

Desert Holly

Lots of Desert Holly (Acourtia nana) is surfacing on the Brown’s Ranch trail. This photo makes them look to be easy to find but they are TINY! Although they can reach 8 inches tall, they are typically much smaller in our area. The leaves we’re seeing are only a couple of inches tall. The flowers are especially difficult to see so…if you hike the trail in the next few days, look very closely on the sides of the trail….especially beneath Creosote or trees.

Apr 8

Lady Fingers Day Two

We had a beautiful sunny day yesterday which this Lady Finger Cactus obviously preferred because the blooms opened a little wider and there were more of them than the day before. Sorry Javelina….you’re not getting them this year!

Apr 7

Lady Finger Cactus

This Lady Finger Cactus (Echinocereus pentalophus) is another of my discount finds. It was 1/4th this size but as you can see, it’s responded really well….especially since I fenced in Javelina Cafe. I knew it was about to bloom yesterday so in between doing taxes, I set my timer and went out every two hours to check on it. These photos were taken about 11am. It was heavily overcast yesterday which might explain why they didn’t open all the way but I was happy that I didn’t miss it totally like I usually do 🙂

Captured with Canon 180mm Macro

Apr 6

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Home Depot Hedgehog

I rescued this Hedgehog from Home Depot. It was under a bench with a price tag of a few dollars and it looked nearly beyond help. I had no idea what color the bloom would be but I felt sorry for it and took it home. To my delight, the blooms are an amazing soft pink! I used a filter called Pixel Bender on it to give it even more softness.

Apr 4

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Candelilla

Scouting my yard for a photo of the day, I noticed my Candelilla (Euphorbia antisyphilitica) is finally starting to bloom. Yea! I was worried it wouldn’t bloom this year but several stalks are filled with blooms right now. The flowers are so small most people don’t even notice them when they pass the plant. To reveal its complexities, I used a Canon 100mm Macro lens. Who knew! CLICK HERE to read about this plant’s interesting properties.

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