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I was in Austin over the weekend for my niece's H.S. graduation, so I took the opportunity for a drive in the Hill Country on Sunday. I found some nice mixes of gaillardias and coreopsis between Llano and Cherokee, and also between Burnet and Lake Buchanan. The best spots were along SH16, Llano CR 226 (going east/north from Baby Head) and RR 501 just east of Cherokee. Closer to Burnet, there were nice areas on RR 690, RR 2341, RR 3509 and a small stretch of P4, just off Hwy. 29.
Butterflies were abundant all afternoon. I saw tons of them along Llano CRs 312 and 315 - many checkered whites and swallowtails along with a few spangled fritillaries and some very small ones which I have yet to identify - they didn't cooperate much, as they were in constant, rapid motion. On CR 315, in the valley near Sandy Creek, I found a low, sprawling plant with purple flowers, obviously in the pea family. The checkered whites were all over the flowers, and as I inspected more closely, I found that they had a very strong grape aroma. I was able to later ID the plant as Lindheimer's Tephrosia.
I would expect the flowers to last for a while longer in the area after last evening's storms / rainfall. I've added a few photos from the weekend to my '09 album. http://imageevent.com/mpurcell/txwf2009
PS - I'll offer this as a little teaser. I've been meaning to post to the "Growing Wildflowers" section, as I finally took the plunge this year and established a larger wildflower "haven" in my front yard - with great success I might add, despite some unexpected setbacks (to be detailed in the upcoming post). I'll try to get around to processing some of the photos of my wildflowers this weekend, and make a follow-up post early next week with a link to them.
'Til then,
Bill.
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