I just returned from Beeville, Texas. On this my first trip there, the plants I found astonished me. The “Lyn Lowery introductions” that I acquired in Round Top, TX about 10 years ago and now grow in my Austin garden I found growing in abundance there.
These include lime prickly ash (Zanthoxylum fagara),
sandpaper anacua (Ehretia anacua) whose compact shape in its native chaparral makes it look like a different plant than the one that grows in my Austin garden, Caesalpinia mexicana (Mexican bird of paradise tree) -- not actually blooming this robustly right this minute in the wilds of Bee County.
I also saw quite a few other beautiful and interesting species that I could not quite identify. This one looks vaguely like yaupon (Ilex vomitoria) but displays very sharp branch tips and no fruit at this time of year during a severe drought. Several plants I saw looked familiar from my reference books of native plants from South Texas (Everitt & Drawe. "Trees, Shrubs & Cacti of South Texas" Texas Tech University Press).
July Meeting
1 year ago
2 comments:
Hello Chimera - ran into you on a google search for something or other and started drifting through older posts.
Your mystery almost-yaupon reminds me of a shrub that grew in my first Austin yard called Elbowbush. Do you think this is a possibility? Here's the entry at the Wildflower Center.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
After consulting Everitt & Drawe, "Trees, Shrubs & Cactii of South Texas," I tend to identify this mysterious shrub as "Amargosa" (Castela texana, Simaroubaceae family). I found what appears the same species growing in the median of Dittmar Street between Palace Parkway and Manchaca Rd. It stowed away in a nursery-supplied Sophora secundiflora several years ago when the City of Austin widened Dittmar and installed the esplanade. Anyone seeking a tough evergreen for duty as a privacy hedge and bird-friendly thicket could hardly do better than this shrub, identified in Vines as "Allthorn Castela." Handle with care. I recommend leather welder's gloves and long sleeves.
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