Fall Wildflowers at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

I've long wanted to visit the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, and I got my chance last week.  We are hosting the Shirley Meniece Conference, a cherished annual conference of the Garden Club of America.  I had the idea that I should attend this year's conference in Austin to have the opportunity to see how the conference runs and help in the planning of the 2013 conference.  It was very worthwhile, and the ladies of the GCA are great.  I really enjoyed spending the time with them.  It was a whirlwind of great speakers from the start, but I did have some time to check out the surprising diversity of native plants in bloom.

This is chocolate flower, Berlandiera lyrata.  I have seen this in gardens in the Washington, DC area, but it seems to have more intensity of fragrance here.  

It was windy, and I'm lucky that I got a somewhat clear shot of the prairie zinnia, Zinnia grandiflora.

 

Gray Glove Mallow, Sphaeralcea incana has wonderful woolly gray leaves and striking orange flowers.

Gregg dalea, Dalea greggii, was used in many places to good effect as a ground cover.  The magenta flowers on long stalks floated above the foliage.

Maxamilian sunflower, Helianthus maximiliani, was in bloom everywhere, and the bees were busy collecting pollen and nectar.

  

At the end of the day, a very blue Wheeler's sotol, Dasylirion wheeleri, was striking in a bit of shade among the whites and beiges of the limestone walls of the structures in the garden.  We have a lot of work to do in the Introduction Garden at the Arboretum to create anything as striking as the display at the Wildflower Center, but I trust the creativity and hard work of our staff will result in something equally inspiring.

GWA: Wild Corn and Wild Cotton

After the stop at the Monastery, we went to Native Seeds/SEARCH.  It was a small but interesting facility with the chief function of storing seed.  One plant that caught my eye was Gossypium thurberi, wild desert cotton. 



The small flowers were delicate and lovely with their fuchsia pink spots.  I did some investigation and I found that this species only makes a few fibers in its seed capsules, so it will never be grown for textile purposes.  Its leaves are said to turn bright red in late autumn.  It seems like a lovely ornamental that will deal with a lot of drought.

We also saw Zea mexicana, teosinte.  As you may know, this is the forebear of modern corn.  The seeds look more like pebbles than corn kernels, but this plant certainly has shaped the world more than most.

  

The plant is like a miniature corn plant that hints at its potential.  In the axils of the leaves are a few silks, with now sign of the ears of corn seen on its progeny.  I like the use of tiles for plant labels.  It's very appropriate to the surroundings.  Yes, I realize that I moved mexicana from subspecies to species level.  I'm only going with the name that USDA now uses for the plant.