Fields gone wild
Texas flowers star in colorful new guidebooks
To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Driving along Texas roadsides in the spring will remind you that life’s about the journey, not the destination.
With fields full of blue, yellow, red and fuchsia, who could help but wonder what marvelous flora spring has brought? Two new guides will help you figure that out.
“Wildflowers of Texas” by Michael Eason (Timber Press, $27.95) is a compact field guide that will help budding botanists identify 1,170 wildflowers from the Panhandle and the “sky islands” (Texas’ three mountain ranges) to the Hill Country and our Coastal Bend. Eason, a conservation botanist for
Texas Flora, has compiled a handy reference from his years performing botanical inventories and plant surveys on private and public lands.
“Texas Wildflowers: A Field Guide” (University of Texas Press, $19.95) is the updated bible of roadside flower guides. Joe Marcus, program coordinator of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, has lovingly updated the guide, which was first published in 1984, written by Campbell and Lynn Loughmiller. Marcus and the Wildflower Center have added stunning photos and descriptions of 300 species. While the guide is not as comprehensive as Eason’s, Marcus has added commentary about the plants’ histories, landscape uses, edible and medicinal properties and folklore.
If you collect wildflower books, like I do, you’ll want both of these beautiful guides.
Eason organizes perennials, annuals and bulbs, both native and naturalized, by flower color and family. He also discusses Texas’ floral ecology and conservation and offers viewing tips.
“South Texas, particularly south of San Antonio and down into the Corpus Christi area, are really in bloom right now, due to the rains last year,” Eason said.
He said to look for these 10 plants in the Houston-Brenham area: bluebonnets, wild indigo, paintbrush, white prickly poppy, false garlic, groundsel, evening primrose, false gromwell, larkspur and yellow star.
The Wildflower Center offers wildflower driving routes — including the Brenham Bluebonnet Loop, Willow City Loop in the Hill Country and a Brazoria County drive — on its website, wildflower.org.