Readers’ wildlife photos

I previously put up pictures by Rik Gern showing his front yard (see here); now we get to see his backyard in Austin, TX. The captions are indented, and you can enlarge Rik’s photos by clicking on them.

The last batch of pictures I sent you was from my front yard, which I try to keep nice and trim for the neighbors. The back yard is a more casual place and I generally don’t like to mow or remove anything that grows there until I can see what it’s flowers look like.

This delicate looking little flower (first photo) is Common Hedge Parsley (Trills arvensis). I had a hard time determining whether it was Hedge Parsley or Poison Hemlock until I found a website that showed the difference in the appearance of the seed pods (second photo). It’s also home to a spider of some sort. Spiders and their webs are all over the back yard!

Prostrate Spurge (Euphorbia prostrata) sounds like something you should consult your urologist about, but it’s just a common weed that thrives in sunshine and dry soil. It grows rapidly, but is really easy to remove. It’s got a woody stem, like a miniature tree branch.

Summer rains brought a bunch of Boletus mushrooms. As for the species, your guess is as good as mine. There’s something about the underside that has a spooky but elegant look.

Speaking of spooky, now we come to the rough part of town, or at least of the back yard.

This Saw Greenbriar (Smilax bona-nox) (6) looks like it’s armed with knives—don’t mess with it or it’ll cut you!!

Also looking rough is this aged Common Sunflower (Helianthus annus). It’s youth and beauty gone, it now looks like a cranky senior citizen—with hairy legs!!!

 This detail of the stalk makes it look like a menacing plant, but you can actually grip them with your hands without discomfort when it’s time to pull them, though you’d get itchy if you did it for a long time. If you look closely you can see tiny spider webs all up and down the sides of the stalks.

These front-and-back pictures  formed the basis for the following two images which were made by combining them and putting them through the photoshop blender.

This Seussadelic image might be from Dr. Seuss’  unconceived, unwritten, and therefore unpublished book, “If I Ran The Botany Lab”.

The last one, “The Cosmic Cowboy Rides Again” is sort of a tribute to Texas music legend Doug Sahm*.