Texas Frogfruit

Looking at this series of photographs, one might reasonably get the impression their story is about the Bordered Patch butterfly. In fact, the Morning Glory flower is incidental and this butterfly is only a part of the story. The Bordered Patch is enjoying the nectar from the flowers of another one of the apparently insignificant, but essential ground cover plants commonly growing in South Texas.

As, with Tube-tongue, Texas Frogfruit (Phyla nodiflora) is a flowering plant easily overlooked. Frogfruit normally blooms from mid-Spring to mid-Autumn, so it is getting near the end of its flowering season. Butterflies are highly attracted to its nectar and it is the larval host plant for the Phaon Crescent butterfly. While often considered a weed in a traditional landscape, this is one of the ecologically critical ground covers in this region:

This series of photographs was taken on the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River on Monday, October 7, 2013.

Meditation on a Morning Glory, A Sunday Special Edition

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Meditation on a Morning Glory

“The journey is difficult, immense. We will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in one lifetime see all that we would like to see or to learn all that we hunger to know.”  -  Loren Eiseley

There are over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae). The best I can determine the ones in this set of photos are Ipomoea cordatotriloba Dennst, also known as tievine.

These photos were taken using my "hybrid" technique in my backyard in the Olmos Basin on Tuesday, September 25.