Not Kudzu

Driving along the interstate sometimes I see trees that look like they've been taken over by Kudzu. Kudzu has reached Texas, but not deep into the heart of Texas, so I was confused. Especially since Kudzu does not attack one tree in the middle of a Kudzu free area.
I found the answer.
I have spoken of three vines here on this blog and they are the culprits. This morning I found two trees that had been grown over by none other than Saw Greenbrier. I'm not quite sure how they made it up 20 plus feet into a tree, but there it was.
The first Black Willow I found was hard to identify due to being completely covered in Mustang Grape. The grapes are the main culprit in the Kudzu like tree attacks, they can go from one tree to another and create a thick blanket over the tops effectively killing the trees after a while.
The Snailseed can get really high in the trees, but they have bright red berries and don't generally fill the tree so they aren't quite so bad. They're even quite pretty.
So you may see Kudzu in Texas, but more likely than not it's not Kudzu.

"Winter" "Fall"

I have been looking for things to identify, and aside from easy things that are all over the US at various stages of the year I haven't found anything new for a few days.
There's clover; the cowpen daisies are still blooming (though pitiful looking); we had some visiting cardinals; and then there are the unidentifiables.

This one has been growing and green since August at least. It's a very common yard weed, and I don't see it growing past six inches. It's very pretty, not annoying like the following plant, and if it has noticeable flowers they're winter or spring bloomers. It has an odd half-circle stem and has eluded identification for over three months now.

And here to the right we have another sneaky little plant. This one is green with little stripes of purple on the leaves in summer and is now a nice red-orange - the stems especially. It spreads over the ground by rooting it's long feelers into the ground. Now that it's dry you can actually pull up the thick mat without any resistance and the yard looks better without it. You can't mow it out because it's a creeper so it doesn't get high enough to be mowed.

Whatsit... maybe...

I'm pretty sure I saw a Golden Eagle.
The only problem is since it wasn't nearby I can't be sure, but it was the biggest bird of prey I can remember seeing in a long time and it looked about the right color.
Interstate spottings are the most difficult to identify.

Orange Dragonfly

I've already said how you identify a damselfly as a damselfly: thin 10 segmented abdomen, squarish thorax, big eyes, two sets of wings (same size).
But this appears to be a dragonfly.
How do you tell the difference?
1) The eyes are touching. Dragonflies eyes touch, while damselflies end up with a slightly hammerhead kind of look.
2) The wings were always resting open, damselflies generally hold theirs closed.
3) The "tail" doesn't have enough segments, if you can't get close enough to count just remember that damselflies' wings aren't long enough to cover the end of their abdomen - dragonflies' are pretty close. They usually have thicker bodies too.
4) The wings are not the same size, the rear wings are slightly bigger (not that you can tell from this picture though).

That being said, I'm not quite sure what kind of dragonfly it is... just that it is one and that it is orange.

House Sparrow

One of the more common birds around the Americas is the English Sparrow or House Sparrow. Native to Europe and Asia it has spread throughout the world and is now the most widely distributed wild bird. While they have a wide range from
They're about 5-7 inches long with stubby dark beaks and stocky bodies. The males have a grey stripe on the top of their heads, a small black stripe from the beak to the eyes, brown mullet, black goatee, white to grey belly, and orangy-brown wings, back, and tail. The females are shaped the same but look like someone took a can of brown spray paint and shoddily covered up the colors of the male.
The easiest way to tell a sparrow from farther away is to wait for it to fly. A sparrow flies like a bird who's had one too many drinks - with all its bobbing up and down during flight.

They are fairly noisy birds and are fierce protectors of their nests. Beware: if you get too close to a nest you may be dive bombed.
They are seed eaters and frequently may be found on the ground eating.

As the name "house" may suggest these birds only truly thrive near people, they are rarely found in uninhabited forests and prairies but are easily found in grasslands and trees around homes and farms. These Sparrows were first introduced in Brooklyn in 1851 when they let loose about a hundred sparrows from England. By 1900 they had reached the Rockies, that's how well they acclimated.

-And when I say wide range, these little brown birds can be found from the Northwest Territories in Canada to Argentina (though not really in a chunk of northern South America).

Greater Roadrunner

Don't let the name fool you, this is the only type in Texas. The Lesser Roadrunner is only found in Mexico and Central America.
I spotted one of these driving home the other day, it really caught my eye with it's messy head that looked like a bird with a bad haircut. On my double take the roadrunner obligingly came out of the long grass and gave me a good look. The one I saw was a juvenile, getting close to full grown but not quite there yet.
Roadrunners grow to an adult size of 18-24 inches. About half of their bodies are their tails that are held stiffly angling upward and are wide with white ends on the outer feathers. They resemble super-skinny chickens and are brown with white streaks throughout their upper body. They have long grey pointy beaks and long legs and feet. Their feet are different than other birds; instead of three toes in front and one in back, they have two in front and back. The unkempt look is from a small tuft on the top of their heads. They have a chattering call that sounds like clicking and like a woodpecker pecking.

Roadrunners are very useful birds, they are omnivores and like a nice snack of poisonous bug or snake. They like to eat scorpions, spiders, and rattlesnakes. According to the information I have found they will even team up to kill larger snakes. They will also capture, kill, and eat other birds as they sit at bird feeders.

Meep Meep - good runners they certainly are... up to 20mph sprinting. Understandably they generally prefer to run over flying.

Henbit

Apparently the extra warmth here after a period of not-as-warm has fooled a few plants into growing and blooming at the wrong time, though they look a little pathetic.
This is one. Henbit, or Henbit Deadnettle Mint, is usually a early spring bloomer and a winter annual, but among some of the patches I've been finding there have been one or two and there with a few blooms.
It's pretty obviously a mint, it has a stiffly perfect square stem and a strong smell when crushed. I'm not sure how to describe the smell, it's like a cross between pine and fresh catnip. They only grow between 4 and12 inches high and look quite flimsy with it's skinny stem and large leaves and top-heavy flower head. The stems are a dark purple color for the most part (not to be confused with Purple Deadnettle which has purple leaves as well), and the whole plant grows from a taproot*.
The leaves are opposite and lack petioles on the upper part of the plant. They're deeply incised with a scalloped (and crinkly) look to them. Where the leaves connect to the stem there's a fuzzy looking area that looks like it used to hold flowers.
The flowers are pink to purple and grow in whorls, they are tubular and about 1/4 - 2/3 of an inch long.
Henbit is more likely to be found growing in buffalo grass than the softer bluegass or other soft northern-type grasses. This means it can grow pretty much anywhere down here, but its range reaches up to Canada/Greenland and it has to compete a little more in some of it's range.

If you suspect you've found a mint in Texas, this website is quite nice. It has good descriptions along with photographs of all the species and subspecies.

*Taproot, in simple terms: a single root. Think carrot or dandelion, not tree or clover.

Whatsit called... Witch's Brooms

I was reading about these about a month ago, but I put it out of my mind until recently when I saw one.
It's a freak of nature - disease, deformity - that causes a woody plant to have an unusually dense patch of growth that looks similar to a nest or, in the case of some trees, the end of a witch's broom. They believe it may be caused by organisms introduced into the plant because when a piece of a witch's broom is grafted onto a healthy plant that formerly healthy plant goes nuts and gets its own witch's broom.

Red-Eared Slider

This is a turtle native to the United State's south, but has spread to many parts of the world due the use of these as pets. They're a type of pond turtle and spend a lot of their time in the water and mostly come out to bask in the sun or lay their eggs.
They grow between 8-12 inches, males are smaller, and have the distinctive red patch on the sides of it's head right near the ears. Their shells are flattened, which is one way to tell it apart from a box turtle, and is a dark brown-green with yellow to brown patterns. Their undersides are yellow with brown spots, not that you'd probably ever see it, but just in case. The visible skin - head, tail, and legs - are green with yellow lines that, while irregular, run pretty much head to tail and thigh to toe.


Fun Facts:
Apparently the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are supposedly red-eared sliders.
Turtle shells are primarily made of their ribs.
They do not hibernate, they brumate which is a type of lower activity with occasional waking up to drink water or occasionally surface and eat.

The Monarch

Probably one of the most recognizable butterflies ever, here we have the Monarch. They are multivoltine as well and most of the ones here right now are in the middle of their great migration.
The larvae have vertical yellow, white, and black stripes, but the adult (as you can see) is black with white spots. The chrysalis are smooth and bright green with what looks like a little necklace about 2/3 of the way up it. They adults have the stained glass look with the orange and black and the top tips of their wings are spotted like their bodies.

Monarchs are milkweed eaters and can be found anywhere where milkweed can be found from southern Canada to most of South America and even on many pacific islands - including Hawaii.

Red Admiral

I wasn't kidding when I said there were a lot of butterflies around here lately. There are many of them that either winter here or stop by on their migration to Mexico.
This Red Admiral one was nice enough to pose for the camera. Red Admirals live all over the USA (truthfully from Guatemala to Alaska and Iceland), but come south for winter around October and begin to leave around March.
The larvae are dark with thin yellowish horizontal stripes, and are kinda bumpy with vertical circles of spines.
The adults are 1.75 - 3 inches and are dark brown to black with a few white spots on the tips of their forewings. They also have the orange bars on the bottom of the hindwings and through the middle of the forewings, when the wings lay flat the orange looks like a partial circle.
They like nettles a lot as caterpillars and flowers and sap as adults.



I think this would be a good time to learn a new word: multivoltine.
Let's break off a piece I'm sure we all can understand, "multi" it has to do with something happening more than once. A butterfly that is multivoltinous has multiple life cycles in one season, more than one brood.
I find it interesting how these butterflies that were born in the north and have known nothing else still know where to go in the south when winter comes, and those that were both in the south know where to go in spring. It's an amazing thing.

Puss Caterpillar

It has a name as ugly as it looks. Yup, that's a puss caterpillar for you. I've seen a couple of these around, but never knew what they were (besides caterpillars). They are also known as a Stinging Asp.
They are the caterpillar form of the flannel moth, which is a very very fuzzy yellow moth of average moth size - about an inch. Actually, a better word than "fuzzy" would be "hairy" because both the caterpillar and adult are so overabundantly hairy. They look like tribbles!
The larvae are about 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch long and tan to light yellow usually with a slightly darker stripe down the middle. The easiest way to tell if you've identified right is to touch it because it has a layer of venomous stinging spines under the top layer of soft hair, but you really don't want to do that. While the sting is hardly ever a serious concern it travels to the lymph nodes then to the chest and can cause excruciating pain. The sting can cause a welt that looks much like an allergy shot reaction or right after a TB test before it sinks in.

Puss caterpillars are a southern thing, I can't find any record of it farther north than Missouri. They're fairly common in Texas as they like the pecan, persimmon, hackberry, and oak trees.

This is one to watch out for as it looks so innocently fuzzy people are much more willing to pick them up, even thinking it might not be a living being at all - only a piece of fuzz.

Whatsit called... Weep Holes

Weep holes are found frequently around here, and I'd never heard of them before. The main reason you find them so often is brick is such a common building material down here, and the more opportunities you have to see something the more times you see it.
If you're looking at a brick home and see, along the bottom, regular areas between the bricks that look like someone forgot to mortar... you're looking at a weep(er) hole.
These little things look a little odd at first but they serve a purpose, which is good because otherwise people would be crazy to be putting holes in their foundations.
They are run offs for accumulated water to leave the base of the home and not sit within the walls. They can provide an opening for bugs or even snakes to enter the home, but many newer buildings are adding screens to help with this little problem.

Southern Cloudy Wing

This is another species of little butterfly or skipper, technically it's a skipper but my brain is wired to "either moth or butterfly." I couldn't even tell you how to tell if something is a skipper or butterfly. The handy-dandy helpful note I found said things like "short wings" "forewing and hindwing may be held at different angles" and "hooklike extensions on the antenna." It's probably naughty of me to think this was since I'm trying to learn about nature, but to me skippers are butterflies and probably always will be.
There are several different types of Cloudy Wing skippers, the Confused Cloudy Wing being the closest in appearance. While I would have loved to talk about a confused butterfly, I did not see one of those... I saw the Southern species.
They're small, only about 1.25 - 1.5 inches long, and a dark grey. They have some little blocks of white on the bottom sides of the wings. Not circles, but patches with blocky corners. They have thick margin trim and hooked antenna.
The Southern Cloudy Wing has two broods a year this far south and they can be found from March through November. They like open areas and are fast fliers that prefer to stay low to the ground.
Despite the name these ones can be found as far north as Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

I'm going to be adding this link to my helpful link post, but I'll put it here too.
Butterflies and Moths of North America

Little Yellow Butterfly

I'm not kidding, that's the real name of this teeny-tiny butterfly. The last couple days have been butterfly central. I had to get a butterfly book from the library and have only managed to identify four (two I already knew): Monarch (easy), Black Swallowtail (had to be reminded), the Little Yellow, and tomorrow's topic. That just scratched the surface, there have been more butterflies than I can even keep track of. The Little Yellow, though, has definitely been the most prominent.
They're 1.25 to 1.75 inches long and a dull light yellow. The top side of the forewing has a black smudge on the tip, but you hardly ever see it because they're flitterers, they don't travel far for any flight, and because they always rest with wings together. The wing tips are edged with a light brown line and there are some small splashes of light brown on the wings too. They have yellow antenna with brown tips.

They can be found anywhere from Mexico to the US south.
As adults they really like the necter of asters, which would explain why they're out all over right now - what with the unidentifiable asters all over the place. Their habitat is open areas like roadsides and fields.

Muscovy Duck

AKA: The Turkey Duck.
Frequently found in public parks this lovely specimen is pretty much ugly as ugly can be.
They are larger ducks, males getting up to nearly three feet and females commonly around two feet. They're dark with white wing patches, and they have the bare red turkey face that just might make them distinctive enough to ID from, I dunno, 50 feet away. Muscovy have claws/nails on their dark feet and a wide tail that is reminiscent of a turkey with it's tail down.
It's native range is lower Texas through Mexico, but they adapt easily and can even handle temperatures down to 10* Fahrenheit. If you see them wild in a park up north, while they may be wild, they (or their parents) were likely brought in by people so as to have something other than mallards.
There are domesticated varieties of this duck but some of them are hard to tell the difference between wild, feral, and domestic. Domestic types are normally lighter colored and fatter, but if you're dealing with a duck that lives off people feeding it I'm not sure if you could tell if it was bred chunky or just over fed.

On a neat note though: Turkeys and Muscovy Ducks are the only two domesticated ducks that are native to America.

Phoebe

If you take a map of the USA and draw lines straight east and south off of the Dakotas that chunk if Eastern Phoebe territory. Now maybe they're only there in summer, maybe even only in winter, but if you're real lucky you might find yourself in year round phoebe-land.
That just happens to be where I am, in the thin phoebe belt, I will get to hear their sweet raspy song all year long.
Phoebes are small songbirds that look rather squat with round puffy heads. Their under side is light colored with dark grey head, back, tail, and wings (though they have small white markings on the wings). Phoebe's have dark grey legs and beaks as well.
They prefer open woodlands, fields, and shrubbed areas where there are lots of tasty bugs for them to eat. They might eat some fruits or small animals (like frogs) in the absence of enough bugs.

Phoebes are flycatchers and are in the same family as the Scissortail.

Aster

Between the internet, two large wildflower books, and two hours of my time... I still don't know what particular kind of aster this is. It could be a Frost Aster or a Southern Saltmarsh Aster, but sometimes identification can be hard when the plants are mowed short. There have been similar plants growing about 3 feet tall on the side of the road, but the lack of leaves on the short plants means I can't even be certain if they're the same kind.
This particular kind of aster has flowers about 1/2 inch wide and is compound. The ray flowers are a light lavender (though some of them are almost completely white), and the disc flowers are yellow. Two more helping things: when the ground is dry the petals curl back and make the flowers look like little buttons, and the stems are purplish.

I've seen pictures of this kind on the web but this is always noted as "unidentified aster" or "unknown aster," so maybe it's a variant.

They're very common plants, so it's good enough to be able to recognize them as asters.

Mistletoe

Even though I had never seen wild mistletoe before I knew what this was as soon as I saw it. I'm not sure how long the mistletoe has been there, if it grows quickly or if the leaves had just been hiding it until now.
While I couldn't truly have a positive ID due to not actually knowing much about the plant these are the few things I noticed right away and are pretty much give-aways.
1) It's parasitic. This bunch seemingly popped out of a tree branch without any roots, vines, etc. It's called a pendant bush, which is pretty self-explanatory.
2) Bunches of white berries.
3) Leathery, ovate leaves with rounded tips. Also referred to as "tongue shaped."

Mistletoe doesn't have to be a parasite, but that's how it's most commonly found. It does have roots, but these roots like to go into live branches as well as soil. The entire plants grow between 2-5 feet.
The leaves are thick, 1-3 inches long, and grow in pairs. The fruit grow in bunches of up to 10 berries. The flowers are small, inconspicuous, grow in sets of three, and appear in spring, the berries ripen in December.

There are so many interesting stories and myths about mistletoe. There's the story that mistletoe used to be a tree until it was used to make Christ's cross and was blighted into a parasite. There's also the one about Loki and Frigga, and the superstition that it conferred fertility. You should look it up, there's more about mistletoe than I could fit into a reasonable blog post.

Bluebird

This one is easily recognized as a Bluebird. I couldn't actually see it very well until I pulled out the camera so I thought it was just another one of the Mockingbirds that it was hanging out with. I don't know why one male bluebird was hanging out with 20+ mockingbirds, but he was.
Bluebirds are small thrushes. They have short tails and beaks, with a red-orange breast and neck, and blue head, wings, and back. They do have white undersides
They're bug eaters mostly, but do eat fruits too.
Bluebirds are commonly found on roadsides and near open fields.

Ragweed

Great Texas Ragweed Batman!
It's actually Giant Texas Ragweed, and I'm surrounded.
This one is IDed by it's leaves. About half of the leaves are three pointed and half of them are ovate. They grow oppositely on the thick woody stem, but can become alternating near the flowers. The leaves are a light silvery-grey and dull. The ovate leaves are serrated, the tri-pointed ones are actually just deeply lobed.
The plants can grow up to 4 feet (the pictured one is about that big) and have lots of flowers. The flowers are green and can bloom into fall, which they all seem to be doing right now; they grow on little stalks in clusters and look like tiny hanging bells.

If you're allergic to these buggers you probably know how to identify them already. If you're not allergic you should learn so you can rip them all out of the ground and burn them.

White Winged Dove

When I went out to get my mail the other day I heard a familiar bird call. It sounded like a dove, but since there have only been mockingbirds in those trees for quite some time I figured it was the mockingbirds again.
But, no, a quick scan of the tree line showed an odd looking dove. It was brownish-grey which made me realize it wasn't a mourning dove. As those are the only doves I knew about I was excited to learn something so new. I also relearned that pigeons and doves are in the same family columbidae and the terms can be interchangable in some cases.
The dove was in fact a White Winged Dove; so named for its distintive white stripe along the bottom edge of the wing when at rest and the middle of the top when in flight. Otherwise it looks like a pretty typical dove: long skinny neck, small head, chubby body, little dark stripe below the eyes. They have a dark brownish-grey body and a little blue around the eyes. They're large for doves, adults can be up to a foot long.
The white winged dove has a fairly southern range, so Texas is about as far north as they go.

Cool fact: Dodos were related to pigeons, so that means that two of the most famous animals to go extinct were pigeons.

Black Willow

Due to the growing difficulty in identifying the currently blooming flowers I've been looking more closely at trees. Early fall is an excellent time to identify trees, most of them have fruit and some of the leaves are changing color so you have both colors at your disposal.
May I present you with the Black Willow. It has a fairly wide range, from southern Canada to Texas, though is most commonly reported (according to USDA's website) south and east of the Great Lakes.
Black willows commonly grow to 50 feet, but can get up to 100, and although the trunks can reach 3 feet in diameter I have yet to see one with a 2 foot diameter trunk. They can have either singular or multiple trunks and have light grey-to-black bark with a slight reddishness to it. The bark peels back giving the tree a hairy or shaggy appearance. The branches grow upwards giving the tree a spear-like shape, but this is nicely offset by it's drooping willow leaves.
The leaves are long (to 6 inches) and thin (no more than .75 inches) with fine serrations and relatively short petioles*. They're simple and alternate and turn the most beautiful light gold in fall. The flowers show up in spring as a short catkin of non-descript kinda yellowish color.
Being a willow this tree needs abundant water, so it can be frequently see in ditches, dry riverbeds, and by lakes and rivers.
It's a fairly flimsy looking tree with thin branches and wispy bark, and true to its appearance its wood is very light and not good for building. The wood is good for making charcoal and it's light weight made it excellent for the manufacturing of wooden limbs. The shallowly thick root system also help in the prevention of erosion. Something especially cool is that willow bark has salicylic acid in it (the active ingredient of aspirin) and it used to be chewed as a headache reliever.

Two ways to tell it apart from the weeping willows are these:
Black willow - upward pointing branches, reddish branches.
Weeping willow - downward branches, yellowish branches.

*I know I mentioned this word before, the leaf's stalk, but today I found it's pronounced "petty-OLE" not "peh-TOH-lee." I'm not sure whether to blame this phonics failure on failure, dyslexia, or German double vowel pronunciation.

Cedar Elm

The Cedar Elm, or Texas Elm, is the most common and widespread elm in Texas. Not that you could've possibly guessed at that considering it's name.
I know I talked about the American Elm before and there are many similarities like the bark, leaf shape, and tree form. There are differences, too, though. The biggest (or maybe I should say "smallest") difference is the leaf size. Cedar elm leaves vary in size from .5 - 2.5 inches, whereas American elm's are 4 - 6 inches long.
I've seen a whole tree covered in leaves the size of my pinky-nail.
They're alternate, simple, serrated leaves with even veining and very short stems. The leaves may be glossy-looking in Spring, but the rest of the time they have a very rough feeling to them.
The bark is grey-brown with flakey vertical ridges, and occasionally smaller branches will have cork-like wings coming from the sides. These trees can grow up to 75 feet, but 30-40 is common.
The seeds are up to .5 inches and are called "winged samara," but they're just the little green ravioli. It flowers and grows seeds in the Fall. The flowers are fairly unobtrusive as clusters of short and hairy stems.
As it's a flourishing native plant it should be known that Cedar elms are tolerant of crazy high temperatures, clay soil, and low water. It's a easy ID and a good tree!


--I've gotten two different reports on Dutch Elm Disease, one said that Ceder elm is resistant and the other said American elm is the the resistant one. Since I've seen more writing that Cedar Elms are resistant to DED, I guess I should go with that one.

--Lacebark elm also have slightly smaller leaves, but the bark is a dead give-away. The bark has a lacy, patchy look of patterned brown and red/yellow.

Whatsit called... really...

Here are some of the most useful websites I've found for dealing with identification. The latter ones are Texas (or Southern) specific, the earlier ones are USA wide.

What's That Bug?
Bug Guide
Mushrooms
USDA - Department of Agriculture, it's good for finding plant's ranges. Just type the plant name and "USDA" into a search engine and you'll find a nice handy page.
Cornell Guide to Birds
Butterflies and Moths of North America

NC Wildflowers

NPIN: U of Austin ID site
Texas Trees, ID by leaf
Texas Trees
Lizards and Crocs
Texas Plants and Flowers
Texas Wildflowers

Dogwood

While this may be a pathetic looking plant, it is a Dogwood. A Roughleaf Dogwood to be precise. From what I can tell it's the only white berried dogwood in Texas.
It's common in East Texas and is what is referred to as an "understory" plant as it frequently grows under trees, though when grown in full sun it looks more like a thick shrub than a mini-tree. It rarely will get up to 15 feet. Roughleaf Dogwood blooms more profusely in direct sun then when it's in full shade. The trunks are very thin and flimsy looking and each plant is usually multi-trucked.
It has smooth, shiny, entire* leaves that turn vibrantly red in the fall. The leaves grow oppositely, are about 2-5 inches long, and are mostly ovular.
The stems are slightly reddish and contrast nicely with the white. The clusters of flowers are white and are visible April through August, the flowers themselves being about 1/4 inch and four petaled. And the hard berries are white and show up in August and stick around until whenever they're all eaten or fall off.

Dogwood grows best is moist soils which is why, I'm guessing, all the ones I've seen have been looking a little less than pristine.


*"Entire" in the context of leaves means no serrations, completely smoothed edged.

Ashe Juniper

Aka: Mountain Cedar, Rock Cedar, Post Cedar, Mexican Juniper, Break Cedar, Texas Cedar, or Sabino. It's amazing how many names one plant can gather. It looks a lot like a Eastern Redcedar, but the splitting of the trunk and overall shape are what made up my mind.
Ashe Junipers are flatter and generally have branching low to the ground and so appear to multiple trunks, but Red Cedars are taller and thinner with a singular trunk.
They usually grow between 15 and 30 feet, sometimes getting all the way to a whopping 45 feet. The bark is reddish and flaky, peeling off in long strands, and the trunk looks twisted.
The leaves are dark green, saw toothed, scaly, and well... junipery. I'm not sure how else to describe them, but just remember what this one looks like because that's what they all look like.
Since Junipers are conifers, it has cones. Like the cypress, though, it's cones don't look anything like pine cones. They look like little blue berries 1/4 - 1/3 inch long, they have a sweet smell and ripen in one year (not two like the Red Cedar).
Oddly, it's generally considered an invasive weed even in it's natural range, this is because of their shallow root systems that draws water away from other plants like grasses.

There's something about them that can give people awful allergies during the winter, so that's definitely something to watch out for.

Post Oak

While they may look slightly different all of these Post Oak leaves were taken off the same tree. Even though the leaves themselves might lend themselves well to the name "post," that term actually came from the fact that the wood was frequently used as fence posts due to it being tough and rot-resistant. It's also known as a Iron Oak due to the same reason.
It's a medium tree, growing between 30 and 50 feet tall, and it has the oak look. By "oak look" I mean the grey-brown fissured bark, the twistiness of the branches, the groups of leaves at the branch tips, and the seemingly clumpiness of the leaves when seen from afar. There's the obvious acorns, those give it away too quickly, that are slightly more round than many of the other oak species around these parts.
The cross shaped leaves are what make it an easy identification. They're alternate, simple, 4-6 inches long, slightly hairy on the bottom, and (as you can see) are tough - almost leathery - looking. They can vary a lot even on the same tree, but take a broad overview and it should be simple enough.

Oh, and it should be known that this is one of the more common oaks in Texas. If you can identify this one, Live Oak, and whatever the skinny spiky one is you should be fairly well set.

Crab Grass

Now here's a familiar sight to everyone in the USA. The ever growing, ever invading crab grass. They are native species, but are generally considered a weed for it's tendency to spread into gardens and choke out plants that are meant to be there.
It's distinguishable in it's wide and flattened blades, it's thick stems, and it's rough texture. It's heavy and lays fairly flat to the ground when it's in a mowed lawn, they grow in a circle around the main root and have densely packed leaves.

They're insanely difficult to remove, but if you're not concerned about the absolute prettiness of your lawn they're not a problem.
It grows best in full sun and in warmer areas, especially next to concrete. There are several warm climate grasses that look similar to Crab grass like Buffalo grass or St Augustine grass, but this is the one that's sharing my yard with the Bermuda grass. I wish I could explain the differences, but grasses are difficult as they all look just about the same.

Mockingbird

Just a few hours after posting about Scissortails and how much they look like Mockingbirds, I finally saw a Mockingbird. It's a Northern Mockingbird, and while it's range goes up to Wisconsin and New York it also goes down to Mexico. I guess North American Mockingbird might be a more apt name.
I've been hearing the state bird of Texas all over being very vocal, but this is the first time I got a good look. As luck would always have it the most interesting things come out the one time a week I go out without my camera, and this held true this time too. One reason plants are easier to identify is, even if you can't capture a picture, you can always take a piece home. You can't just take a bird home for identification, because even if you did there'd be quite a mess to clean up.

A Mockingbird call is both easy and difficult to identify. If you're somewhat familiar with bird calls and you seemingly hear five or six different bird species coming from the same spot in a tree... it's a good bet that you've found a Mockingbird. On the other hand, if it's singing unfamiliar songs it can be quite confusing.
The one I saw (only ten feet away, it was a bold bird) I found when I heard a bird song slide seemlessly into cricket noises.
They are smaller birds, only about 10 inches long and about a 1/3 of that is tail. They have white undersides and a light, dusty-grey back and head. The wings and tail are slightly darker but have little patches of white.

The eggs are blue with brown patches, but don't expect to see them as the adults are aggressively territorial. Nesting mommas are always more territorial, and I'm told they will land on people's heads and peck them if you get too close.

They're lovely birds with beautiful songs.

Of Wolf Spiders and Fire Ants

The momma Rabid Wolf Spider had her babies recently. Now you can see little spiderlings running all over our yard, clearly marked with the yellow abdominal stripes. They have been decreasing in number and, while I am quite happy that there won't be too many poisonous spiders running around my yard, I'm afraid that they have been fodder for the fire ants.
Either poisonous spiders or well-fed fire ants... neither sounds good.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Since I have no pictures feel free to pull out a Oklahoma state quarter because this bird is right on the back. On the other hand, they're very beautiful birds and a minted representation doesn't do them justice.
It's a very distinctive bird, and you if ever see one you'll know what I mean. They are about 11-15 inches long, but at least half of that is tail (their tails alone can reach up to 9 inches long). The tails are divided in two, closed when at rest but opening and closing while flying. The name starts to make sense now doesn't it.
Scissortails are light grey on the head, breast, and upper back. They have dark grey wings, top part of the tail, and beak. There is one little stripe of bright red at their shoulder, it isn't always visible when at rest, but it's definately visible when the wings are spread. Sometimes they have slightly yellowish thighs, but since you should be able to make a pretty positive identification from the tail and size alone you probably won't have to be worry about their thighs.

Mockingbirds also have long tails but their's fans out and the top of their heads is darker as well.

Scissortails are a very localized bird, mainly found in Oklahoma and Texas with some ranging into adjacent states.

Anole

It's a wild anole. That much is certain, anyone who's had (or regularly been near) a pet anole would be able to tell you that.
That's all I know. Honestly there are so many lizards and geckos and anoles down in Texas that unless you catch one for observation or have studied these things it's hard to tell what they are. They move so fast and you never see their stomachs, it can be nigh-impossible.
The most common anoles are the Brown and Green, but the Green can be brown-ish sometimes as well.
The only really helpful piece of information I gleaned off the internet is that this one is most likely female as many species of anoles have striped females and unstriped males.

Ole anole!

Gecko

A Mediterranean House Gecko to be precise, and a fairly young one to boot.
I went to close my kitchen windows when... boing! this little thing jumped onto the screen. Far from being surprised I grabbed a jar and the baby and ran outside intent on being able to positively identify one of the lizards I've seen. It was by far the easiest wild animal capture I've ever made. I just snuck up and quickly encircled him (or her, I can't tell) and waited until he ran into the jar. I waited and waited and waited. Thank goodness for interior feline assistance that sent this little booger running around, I can not believe how fast he could run. Next I brought him inside to put him in a slightly larger, more photograph friendly, jar. In the second it took to place one jar into the other and cover the larger one, he nearly got out. I may not mind looking at lizards, but I will not stand for one loose in my house. He was intently watched for a little less than an hour and then released to his original place of origin.

As the name suggests, they are not native. They are flourishing though. These Geckos are nocturnal and may be spotted sitting on buildings nearby a light source just waiting for moths and other insects to eats.
Adults can grow to 5 inches long (this one was about 2) and they have flattish heads. The easiest means of identification are these three things:
1) The semi-translucent pale skin. On their heads you can see darker areas behind the eyes that's actually the eye, and if you get a look at the stomach you can see shadows of their organs.
2) The warty back. Each of those little dots is a bump, and they generally get more pronouced as they age.
3) The striped tail. Black rings down it's tail, even though the back is spotty.

And that's a Gecko for you!

Mustang Grape

I was very intrigued by this plant when I found it a month ago. The five-pointed leaves, the way it tried to vine it's way up the grass and just kept flopping farther day every day that I passed it, it was just very interesting. There's something about the leaves that really just beautiful.
The leaves are rich green on the top and lighter, almost white, on the bottom. The vine itself is reddish brown, and can climb quite high. When older it has a tough trunk and branches that look woody and flaky.The leaves are simple, alternate, 2-6 inches and normally as wide as they are long. The edges are toothed, but may or may not be lobed. That's the hard part, the leaves can be anywhere between triangular and the five-pointed stars you see in my pictures. They have very easy to see veins and are shiny on top.
The small flowers appear in spring in small clusters and are green. The grapes blue-black, 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch, and ripen in summer. By this time of the year they're all eaten. On that note, these grapes are edible, but the raw ones contain a whole lotta acid that will bother the exposed skin of your mouth and hands. Everything I've found says don't eat them raw, make them into wine or jelly, but if you must eat them raw remove the skins.

Hackberry

Or Sugarberry, or Sugar Hackberry.
This one has given me so much trouble, so much! The problem being is that sometimes the leaves are smooth and sometimes they're serrated. Or that sometimes they're mostly smooth with a few serrations. There are multiple varieties, and the leaves seem to be one of the biggest variable. There's also the problem that there are two different trees that are called the Hackberry, and the more commonly represented one online is the other one. Actually there's another tree called a sugarberry that isn't in the elm family, but that one only grows in very Southern Texas and Mexico - so if you're in Cross Timbers it's not your tree. This tree is in the elm family and is generally considered a good shade tree.
The leaves have three main ribs coming from the stem and protruding veins on the underside of the leaf. The tops of the leaves are rough, even when wet, the tips curve slightly, and the sides curl slightly when the everything is drier (at least that's what it has appeared like over the last couple months). They have short stems, uneven bottom, and droop on the branches. The leaves are simple, alternate, and usually shaped like a spear-head. They are thinner than they are long and grow up to 7 inches long.The bark is pretty uniform between subspecies so that's a worthwhile thing to check out. The bark is a light grey and starts out smooth but gets warty or ridged. This one is so ridged and lumpy at first I thought there was something growing on it. As you can see they can sometimes be multi-trunked.
The berries are drupes (a cherry is a type of drupe, stemmed with one pit) and begin to ripen in September as reddish-yellow and end up to be dark red-brown - almost purplish looking, in fact. The flowers come in the Spring, but as they are light green they're not very visible.
It's either a Sugarberry (Palo Blanco) or a Lindheimer Hackberry. But that's what common names are good for, one name can cover a good amount of things without being wrong. I do don't like being wrong, especially when it means I've spent a good amount of time researching and still get it wrong.

Hackberry Emperor

I posted this picture about a month back with the wrong identification, no thanks to the butterfly books I had. I couldn't find it anywhere, which is sad because it's apparently very common since one of its favorite foods (and name-sake) is here in Texas.
It looks a lot like a painted lady, but isn't. There's only one reason I found out what it is and that is... I found the name of the tree it's sitting on. When I googled the name of the tree to cross reference my hope that I had finally found out the name of this kind of tree (two months I have been trying, two months), the first picture was not of leaves it was of this oddly familiar looking butterfly.
It appears to be the southern Texas variety as shown by the three spots on the forewing. It used to be considered its own species "Empress Antonia" but now it's just a sub-species. The regular kind only have one main spot on the forewing.
It's a Hackberry Emperor butterfly. It's rather similar in appearance to the Painted Ladies, but a little less vibrant and with more eyes. The underside of it's wings is marbled brown with seven blue eyes on the back wing and one or three eyes on the forewing.
The top of the wings has the forewings tipped in dark brown which is edged in white dots. There are two little fingers coming down from the top of the wings as well. It's mostly orange-brown and the eyes show through from the bottom as black dots.
It has fishy looking eyes and fuzzy underbody. And one interesting thing I just found out is that their antenna have little dark bands all down the length of them.

That's it. Not a Lady, but an Emperor!

Jam Making

So, I made persimmon jam. It took a extra time to boil, probably because it didn't come to a boil as fast as it should've, but it seems to have set up all right. The canning process went beautifully! All three canned popped in a timely manner, and I'm positive they could sit on the shelf and stay good for quite some time.
The problem is that I'm not so sure on the taste. When I tasted the leftover tablespoon, it tasted dry. Part of the problem may have been that the persimmons weren't all completely ripe, but it seemed like I could've doubled the sugar called for in the recipe.
I'm going to open one tomorrow, see if it's the same. If it is, I'm going to try and figure out what went wrong and then attempt a fix.

I guess it's only right that my first ever attempt at making jam by myself should fail, it's a complicated process and I can't make things look too easy.


And just to let y'all know, the reason I haven't been blogging as much this week is because I've been reviewing everything I've learned up to this point. There's a point at which you have to take a break from shoving as much new information into the brain as possible. Next week should have regular updates again..

Cowpen Daisy

The Cowpen Daisy is a very very common plant. It thrives on "disturbed ground," which is a term I've been seeing a lot more lately... especially in regards to road-side wild flowers. I'm guessing that it means it's a fast returner, taking hold of loose or overturned ground quickly before other plants get a good chance. I have yet to find one solitary Cowpen Daisy plant, it's always three or more. And in the some cases nearly an acre of yellow.
As a daisy it's has ray flowers, usually 10 or 12 rays and each ray having 3 teeth. The flowers are about 2 inches in diameter. They have yellow petals, and yellow middles when they first open and yellow-brown centers after the pollen is gone.
The leaves are triangular and coarsely toothed. They grow oppositely on the stem and around it so from the top it looks four pointed. The color is a light silvery green and the whole plant is covered in a light fuzz.
These are late bloomers, their season is from Fall to early Winter.

Osage Orange

Known easily in the Fall by it's massive fruits, the Osage Orange, or Hedge-Apple (sometimes even Horse-Apple here in Texas), is a pretty common tree around here. My first thought driving past one on the side of the road was that it was an orange tree with unripe fruit, but oranges need a lot of water so I was skeptical. When they never started changing color, I was sure they were not oranges. While they may be named oranges, they are actually in the mulberry family (along with figs).
Since, like the persimmons, Osage orange trees come in male and female not every tree will have fruit. When the fruit is not there (whether it's a male plant or it's simply Spring) to help identify this plant another clue is the thorns. Where the leaf attaches to the branch there is a thorn, it's short and slightly lighter colored than the branch.
The leaves are alternate, simple, with smooth edges, generally growing between 3-5 inches long but can get up to a whopping 8. They are thinner than they are long, only up to about 3 inches. They have even bases, long stems, and are wider near the base and are tapered at the ends. The tops are smooth and glossy, but I don't know about the bottoms because all the leaves within reach were already dry.
The trees grow up to about 40 feet and have low lying branches giving it the appearance of a short trunk. The bark is dark and scaly and the branches produce milky sap when broken. The branches are very twisty and form a densely packed and rounded tree.
The fruit, as you can see, looks remarkably similar to green brains or a shriveling orange. They turn yellow green and last for months. They are quite large getting up to 5 inches in diameter, so around the size of a softball.

Despite being in a family with many edible fruits only the Osage's seeds are edible. There are up to 200 seeds per fruit, though some have none. I've seen the whole fruits smashed on the ground and they actually resemble old nasty mushrooms sometimes, they are gross inside. The edible seeds are covered with a slimy husk, which also must be removed in order to eat them.

These trees had many uses, it's really cool to read about. They were prized for making bows, they produce tannin for tanning leather, and due to the low and thorny branches it was used for a long time for hedge rows and fences.

Broomweed

I can't really find out much about Broomweed. Most of what I know is that, by comparing pictures, that's the only thing I can find that it could be. It's frequently a roadside plant, but can grow anywhere. Broomweed's natural range is mostly from Tennesee to Nebraska and anything south of that line.
The name "broomweed" originally both from the fact that it looks much like an upside down broom end and that early settlers used the dried plant as a broom end.
Broomweed grows up to 3 feet high and is less bushy around the bottom while getting very full and heavily branched at the top. There are many small stems and thin leaves. The blooms can be seen July through October, and the flowers are a big help in identifying it. The flowers may look like they have differing numbers of petals but really each flower is made up of up to 20 ray flowers and many disc flowers (think Sunflowers, dandelions, etc.).* They are yellow and between 1/8 - 1/4 of an inch wide.
Sadly, that is the extent of the information I could find both in library books and online (even after I knew what it was called). So while I'm fairly sure as to what it is the lack of availability of a proper description and photograph could mean I missed something.
Actually what's more frustrating is this one short post took me so long to research and write it took two days worth of allotted blogging time.


*This link will explain about composite flowers very well.

Chittamwood

I've walked by this particular tree every day and I've never really looked at it before. Actually, before it sprouted tons of little black fruits I found it so high I didn't even bother to see that it wasn't part of the oak in front of it.
I think this tree has the most names of any tree I've come by so far. False Buckthorn, Gum Bully, Gum-Elastic, and Ironwood to name only a few. But whatever you call this Sunbelt* plant, it's definitely interesting.
It's a shrub or small tree, from my experience not getting above 40 feet (although, apparently, it can get up to 80 feet).
The leaves are Obovate (which means they're bigger at the tip than the base), 2-4 inches long, slightly curved up, smooth edged, dark green, and shiny. They're simple leaves and they technically grow alternately - but they look more like they're clumped into groups of 5-10 leaves.
The fruit, as you can see, is black, small (no more than 1 inch), and shiny. They typically grow in clusters and have short stems connecting them to the branches - kind of like apples. The flowers they come from are five-petaled, white, and grow in clusters. The flowers show in summer and the fruit in fall.Some of these have a smattering of little spinies on the stems, but if you can't reach them anyway there's no point in worrying. Hopefully you can see this in the picture; the bark is dark but it has shallow crevices that show redness underneath.
Certain subspecies of Chittamwood have fruits that make great jelly (according to the awesome book I previously mentioned), but some of them can cause mild stomach upset. So I would suggest not bothering.

*I learned a new term. "Sunbelt states" refers to the southern states, east and west alike. It's just a stripe along the bottom border of the USA.

Fruit Gathering

I've been gathering fruit the last week or so, I have both persimmons and prickly pears. I'm not sure if I'll get enough to do anything special with them, which is sad, but we can always eat them raw.
Since the persimmons are ripening little section by little section I've been picking them, removing the seeds, cutting them into jam-able pieces, and freezing them. When I have enough then I can use them.
The prickly pears on the other hand need more preparation then that because you have to remove the mini-spines before you cook them for their juice (for jelly), but once you burn the spines off you want to cook them soon. Dilemma, dilemma. There is the option of driving around looking for patches of ripe prickly pears, but I'm not sure if I have that initiative.

The biggest reason I'm writing this though is to give a little advice.
I was stupid and picked the prickly pear fruit, which is sometimes called tuna(weird, I know), barehanded. It is possible to do so and come away unscathed, but not if you pick another one while holding one. I ended up with glochids all over my right hand and fingers, which is pretty nasty because it's an automatic hand full of itty bitty little splinters. The thing is I found a way to get almost all of them out virtually painlessly and quickly.
1) No pressure on the affected area
2) Run fairly warm, though not hot, water over the area until the skin is soft and the muscles are relaxed. This took me a couple minutes.
3) No soap! Just use a fine, non metal, scouring pad and rub.

It took me three scrubbings, but I only had three or four left after all that. It works, but what works better is being careful in the first place.

American Beautyberry

Such an apt name, the plant is really normal except for the vibrantly purple berries that make it amazing beautiful. It's a Southern only plant and it's berries ripen in fall and are a source of food for birds and deet in the winter because they last so long.
It's a shrub, getting only up to 6 feet tall, with large leaves (5-10 inches). The leaves grow oppositely on the stems and are serrated, they can also have a little bit of a patchiness to the green color. The flowers are light green and show up in spring and they turn into the small, pea-sized, shiny, red-purple berries that clump tightly together around the stem by the leaves.
They are not known to be poisonous, in fact the berries apparently make nice jelly. Due to the nature of the berries they aren't good to eat raw, they don't taste very good and can cause mild stomach upset.
It's also a natural insect repellent. I'm not sure how, but that's what I read on Wikipedia... so it must be true. I later corroborated this in a book, so maybe it actually is true.

Common Crepe Myrtle

I wasn't actually going to try to identify this one at first. I see it everyday and yet, until a few days ago, I never saw it growing wild. It was always in use as a decorative plant, which its great for as it's very aesthetically pleasing, and I figured it wasn't native.
I was right, it isn't native. The thing is it's gone native. I'm sure everyone reading this knows (or can easily find) about the disaster of Kudzu, but though Crepe Myrtle comes from around the same area it's acclimated well - it flourishes without being a nuisance.

Its long lasting flowers and smooth bark are what make it so easy to identify.
Depending on the variety it's either a small tree or large shrub; full grown it only gets between 15 and 30 feet tall. The trunks (as they're multiple trunked) are thin and smooth, and they look patchy due to the fact that they are constantly shedding bark. They quite honestly feel like someone spent hours sanding the bark smooth.
The flowers are pink, crinkly looking (think "crepe"), and grow in clusters. The flowers bloom throughout the whole Summer and Autumn. The leaves are smooth edged, shiny, about 2-4 inches, and grow oppositely on the stem.

There are lots of little things you can do to properly identify this tree, but I think the best way is to just look at the general idea of smooth mottled light/dark brown bark and pink flowers. It's a very unique plant, you probably won't get it wrong.

Mushroom Madness

I think these may be poisonous, but it could be another two species that are very tasty. I really need to remember to take wet wipes or gloves with me because I haven't been picking things for fear of walking around for another hour before I get home with poisonous somethings on my hands.
That may sound mega-paranoid, but there are plants out there that are super-deadly-poisonous that you don't want to mess with. That's why it's so important to identify your surroundings and know what's safe. I've come to the conclusion that I'll pick most things, but mushrooms are not only hard to identify but are frequently poisonous.
Mushroom hunting is a hobby that requires lots of studying, asking for help, and caution. The only reason I'm attempting here is because I literally saw nearly a thousand of these mushrooms on a mere 45 minute walk. The biggest things I did wrong in trying to identify was 1) not kicking it over to check the gills and stem and 2) not squishing it to see how it bruised.
Looking at the top it reminds me of popcorn with the little pieces of shell clinging to the puffed white exterior. They were all between 3-6 inches in diameter with short stems and they did not grow in fairy rings. Those last two things make it unlikely to be the poisonous type that looks like this as they have long stems and grow in fairy rings. I still wouldn't eat them though, partially because by the time I found that out they were all long dead.
Since they were all over the place I'm hoping the next rain brings them out again so I can identify them better.

It could be a False Parasol (the poisonous one) or chlorophyllum molybdites, but it could possibly be a Shaggy Parasol chlorophyllum rhacodes or brunneum or the Parasol Mushroom macrolepiota procera. The sad thing, I probably would have been able to almost give a positive identification had I checked the gills and spore print. The poisonous one has green spores and slightly green gills and the edible mushrooms are white.

Just remember, not all fairy ring mushrooms are edible. I used to think they were, but they aren't.