Tag: caliche and barrens

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02/09/2024 Lomatium rooting

A small flat seed, with darker stripes in the middle and paler papery edges, sits on my palm with a single tiny root extending up about half the length of the seed.
I was looking at the seedlings and soil in the caliche planters when I saw one of the carrot-leaf lomatium seeds we planted last spring. I picked it up and was surprised and delighted to see it has a single thin root emerging! I set it back carefully with the root facing into the soil and gave it a bit more water.
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01/28/2024 grasslands field trip

Mom stands on the edge of overgrazed grass at edge of bare winter woods
Mutual photography of bloggers.
Zoomed out view
Close up
More close up
I saw a tiny dew covered spiderweb in a hollow in the ground!
A cute little seedling at just the seed leaves stage, near the dew covered spiderweb.
Briar turns to face the photographer against a backdrop of winter oaks
Who me?
After turning around in the previous picture, briar majestically lifts her head in the bright winter sunlight
Briar can pretend to be majestic and noble!
Still closed mostly
Open!
We saw several Scleroderma earthballs.
A prairie verbena purpled leaves for winter but still alive.
Last year’s branches of queen’s delight (Stillingia), the limestone species.
Briar sat nearby as Mom tried to get a picture of the Stillingia stems too.
So tiny
Unfurling leaves
Mom has been seeing Cymopterus blooming in other nearby sites but in this site they were just emerging.
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10/02/2023 feeding the world

Bright yellow composite flower stalks are fluffy with small blooms. They are in a rusted steel planter.
Probably Solidago rigidiuscula (thanks for ID, Mom!). This was an accidental but fortunate stowaway in the caliche from TX home!
Big arcs of flower covered Maximilian sunflowers are in bright sunlight in front of shaded and dark leaved Datura in the background.
Heavy work, feeding the neighborhood. The maxes hadn’t fully dropped yet here like they did after the rain.