The Cycle Of Life

Here's a photo of a fungus I spotted growing on a tree trunk today.

The tree is a live oak and though dead, it's still standing. The fungus is known as a bracket fungus, shelf fungus, or conk. It's brightly colored and zig-zags along the trunk. It's part of the recycling process, returning the nutrients and materials which the oak extracted from the ground during it's life, making them available for new life.

Also on my hike today, I saw a small live oak grove which I thought would make a nice black and white image. The trees are all fairly young, judging by their four inch trunk diameters. They're at the edge of a small meadow.

Before The Front

There's a cold front coming in tonight, so I decided to hike while it's still a bit warm.

I noticed this beautiful bit of bark on a Texas Persimmon (Diospyros texana). I've posted about Texas Persimmon before, but didn't have a good picture of the bark. The bark peals away to reveal a smooth underlying layer. It usually crinkles at the joints, giving it a skin-like appearance.

Following up on last weeks post, I spotted another bit of fall color, this time in the bright red berries of a Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria). There aren't as many berries as I've seen in past years. I don't know if that's a general case or just applies to this plant.

Finally, here's a view from our property and overlooking the valley below. I like the dramatic sky and the sun beams. You can see the grass is yellow and the green you see is mainly Live Oaks (Quercus virginiana) and Ashe Junipers (Juniperus ashei).

Red, Gold, and Green

Central Texas is not famous for its fall colors. Nonetheless, I went on a hike today to see what I could see.

My search was rewarded with a few splashes of color. I prefer to think that our land isn't gaudy with its offerings. Its gifts are more subtle and their rarity is what makes them more valuable.

I first came upon a bright red vine in the lower branches of a small tree. It's a Sevenleaf creeper (Parthenocissus heptaphylla). It's very similar to Virginia creeper, which has five leaves, but much less common. It's endemic to the Edwards Plateau region. The leaves are about 2 inches long and bright red - quite striking.

Next, I saw that some of the cedar elms are starting to turn yellow. Here's a couple at the edge of a woods among Ashe Junipers (Juniperus ashei) and Live Oaks (Quercus virginiana).

This small cedar elm is even brighter. It's in the middle of a forest and maybe that's why it's further along the color change.

Did you know the fall color change is caused by the leaves losing their chlorophyll? The trigger is the reduced amount of daylight in the fall. This causes trees to shut down their chlorophyll production and prepare for winter. The leaves' intrinsic colors are then able to show, not masked by the chlorophyll's green.

Autumn Days

The Frostweed (Verbesina virginica) is blooming at the end of October and one month into autumn. It's known as frostweed because with the first winter freezes, the stems will exude water that freezes into beautiful shapes.

Here's a photo of the white blooms with four butterflies and a bee enjoying the offering. The plants grow to about 4 feet high. It's interesting that we still have butterflies so late in the year. I think the only time we don't see them is in the deepest part of winter.

Since it's so close to Halloween, I thought I'd share a part of our woods which I thought looked a bit spooky today.

As Long As The Grass Shall Grow

The native grasses are thriving after the recent rain. Our back yard is thick with Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). It's about 3 feet tall right now. I think it does well in our backyard because of the partial shade. Here's a photo taken today; you can see how dense it is.

It's one of the components of a tallgrass prairie along with Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Yellow Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans), and Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). We have 3 of the  tallgrass prairie grasses on our property. In order of frequency: Little Bluestem, Yellow Indiangrass, and Big Bluestem. We haven't found any Switchgrass.

Here's a photo of a small stand of Yellow Indiangrass in our front yard. The seed heads are eye-catching.

Where The Grass Is Greener Still

I planted a mixture of Buffalo Grass (Bouteloua dactyloides) and Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis) grass around our house 10 years ago. We had just moved in to the newly-constructed house and there was no lawn. This was 5 years before I became a Master Naturalist, but I had a bit of knowledge and knew that I wanted a grass that was native, drought-tolerant, and, above all, low-maintenance.

I did a bit of research and found the Native American Seed company. They offered a mixture of these two grasses and I thought they met my requirements, so I ordered about 20 pounds of seed.

Planting the seed was pretty simple - I rented a power tiller and prepared the area. I started spreading the seed with a small, hand-cranked, rotary spreader, but that didn't work too well. The seed was too fine and didn't dispense well. I found the best method was to just broadcast it by hand. I wasn't sure that I would get even coverage, but just kept going. After that, I lightly raked the soil to cover the grass seed.

I had to water it every day for about 2 weeks, but the seeds sprouted in just a few days. I noticed birds eating the seed, but they didn't seem to do much damage.

Here's a stand of Blue Grama along our driveway. This is taken after our recent rains and the grass has put out seeds. It seems to do this opportunistically after a good rain. I like the fact that it re-seeds itself and is getting thicker every time.

Grama grasses have a characteristic eyebrow shaped seed head and you can see that better in this closeup.

Ten years later and I'm happy with the results. I never water the grass; our normal rainfall, even through drought periods is enough to keep it going. It turns brown, but doesn't die. I've never fertilized it and only put a thin layer of compost on it once, about 2 years after planting. I only mow it a few times a year, mainly when needed, although it doesn't grow much higher that about 6 inches.

There are some potential negatives though. It's not a turf grass. It's never very thick and this allows weeds and other grasses (like bermuda (Cynodon dactylon) and King Ranch Bluestem) to move in.

I don't mind the negatives and the no-watering and low-maintenance more than make up for them.

A Flock Of Turkeys

A flock of wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) visited our water dish in late September. They're actually a sub-species, Rio Grande Wild Turkey, native to Texas.

I count 10 birds in the photo and that seems like a good sized flock to me! A couple of them are at the water dish, near the rainwater collector and the rest are foraging in the area. The 50 gallon tank is full right now because of the recent rains and it's good to see them making use of it.

I think they're all female but it hard to be sure since I can't see all of their heads. Based on their relative sizes, though, I think it's a good guess.

I've read that in a foraging flock, like this one, the birds will take turn being lookouts. While most are scratching or eating, a couple will be looking out for danger. That seems to be what's happening here. The near one is looking right at the camera. I wonder what it thinks?