As with my walk this past Friday, I am going to publish this post now and add the text tomorrow. The photos tell the story better than I can write it at the moment anyway.
Update, Thursday, November 3:
As soon as I was on the trail, two things really stood out. First was the abundance of wildflowers, mostly very small ones, in full bloom along the trail. The other thing that struck me was that the ground was covered with a great abundance of snail shells.
There are numerous invasive plant species in the park as there are in all of Bexar County such as Chinaberry trees, wax-leaf ligustrum (privet) and Johnsongrass to name only three of the more common species. In 2004, I was working on a photo project in Olmos Basin more or less documenting the current condition of the basin. I was criticized by at least one ecological activist for including photos of privets and Chinaberry trees. This individual missed the point of the photo essay.
While I'm not particularly proficient at plant identification, I can recognize many of the invasives, at least in their mature form. But I can't definitively distinguish Johnsongrass from other grasses as new growth. There may be a photo of young Johnsongrass in this post. I really have no idea what species it is.
The point I am getting to with this is that if I do include a photo here and there of invasive species, like it or not it is growing here. And if I do have a photo of privet or Chinaberry or Johnsongrass or whatever, my hope is it is a visually compelling and beautiful photograph worthy of inclusion in this blog.
Update, Thursday, November 3:
The Salado Creek Greenway is in the process of being extended as part of the San Antonio Parks and Recreation's ongoing development of the greenway trail system. I wrote a little bit about the Leon Creek Greenway expansion in my Friday, October 28 post. The Salado Creek trail has been closed just north of Rittiman Rd while the bridge over the creek is being renovated. When the work on the bridge is complete, the trail will be extended into John James Park.
The Salado Creek channel is the eastern boundary of the park. There is one paved nature trail in the park with numerous natural surface side trails. On my Monday, May 30 walk I covered the paved trail and one of the dirt trails south and west from there. My walk yesterday was primarily along the dirt trail that goes south from the parking lot along the high ground at the top of the west side of the creek channel.
As soon as I was on the trail, two things really stood out. First was the abundance of wildflowers, mostly very small ones, in full bloom along the trail. The other thing that struck me was that the ground was covered with a great abundance of snail shells.
There are numerous invasive plant species in the park as there are in all of Bexar County such as Chinaberry trees, wax-leaf ligustrum (privet) and Johnsongrass to name only three of the more common species. In 2004, I was working on a photo project in Olmos Basin more or less documenting the current condition of the basin. I was criticized by at least one ecological activist for including photos of privets and Chinaberry trees. This individual missed the point of the photo essay.
While I'm not particularly proficient at plant identification, I can recognize many of the invasives, at least in their mature form. But I can't definitively distinguish Johnsongrass from other grasses as new growth. There may be a photo of young Johnsongrass in this post. I really have no idea what species it is.
The point I am getting to with this is that if I do include a photo here and there of invasive species, like it or not it is growing here. And if I do have a photo of privet or Chinaberry or Johnsongrass or whatever, my hope is it is a visually compelling and beautiful photograph worthy of inclusion in this blog.
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