Barton Creek Habitat Preserve

Table Rock on Barton Creek

The impetus for our trip to Austin was an invitation to a Nature Conservancy luncheon in the Barton Creek Habitat Preserve.  Yes, the same Barton Creek that flows into Zilker Park near downtown Austin, but several miles to the north-west and a whole, different mindset from there.  After finding our way along a Farm-to-Market road that offered sweeping views over stoney hills and canyons, we arrived at the preserve where we were treated to a lovely alfresco buffet lunch followed by a presentation on the Nature Conservancy's efforts to protect freshwater habitats in Texas and around the world, certainly a relevant topic after the severe drought the state endured last year. Then most of us set out on an easy walk to the creek and along it to a feature called Table Rock.  I think you can even see in the photos how clear the water is.  Public access is limited in the over 4,000-acre preserve, so we were privileged to have this brief peek at it.  It was saved from development in 1994 and is being restored and maintained to foster and protect native wildlife and their habitat while also contributing to the water quality of this significant creek. The Nature Conservancy does such vital work in ensuring that places like this continue to exist and thrive in our increasingly congested and polluted world. When you visit their website, be sure to check out the spectacular photos and videos which will leave you awed by such diverse natural beauty.

Winecups

Wildflowers

Predictions have been for bountiful wildflowers this spring in most of Texas, and the roadsides were indeed abloom with bluebonnets nestled among yellow froths of coreopsis as we sped south to Austin last Friday.  Appropriately, our first stop was the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center where bluebonnets shared fields with pink phlox, yellow buttercups, lavender prairie verbena and orange bursts of Indian paintbrush.  Off one trail there were even choice patches prepared especially for the traditional Texas tots-in-bluebonnets photos.









Many of the native plants – salvias, spiderworts, columbines, penstemons – are the same as can be found here in north Texas, but this unfamiliar tree with its profusion of tiny yellow pompoms caught our eye; it's a huisache, a member of the acacia family.  According to the online database, in southern Europe this species is extensively planted for the flowers which are a perfume ingredient.

Huisache

Observation Tower and Administration Building

Harmoniously complementing the plants and the land is the subtly contemporary architecture of the facilities with its rustic stone Hill Country look.

View from Observation Tower

The one antique structure at the center, an 1885  carriage house, is currently housing an exhibit of intricate paper flower art by Shou Ping.

The Display Gardens

One feature of the Display Gardens which I found especially interesting was the plot with information on botanists and plant collectors for whom various plants are named, such as the common Salvia greggi, one of 23 species named in honor of Josiah Gregg who traveled through Texas in 1841-42, taking note of Texas geology, trees, prevalent attitudes, and politics which he subsequently compiled into a two-volume "Commerce of the Prairies.”  Or Gaura lindheimeri, named after Ferdinand Jacob Lindheimer (1801-1879) who is often called the Father of Texas Botany because of his work as the first permanent-resident plant collector in Texas.  Lindheimer is credited with the discovery of several hundred plant species;  his name is used to designate forty-eight species and subspecies of plants.

It was a perfect time to visit the Wildflower Center which I had long wanted to see.  It is also, coincidentally, the centennial of the birth of Lady Bird Johnson whose "focus was on the ecological advantages as well as the beauty of native plants - a passion that would lead her to create the National Wildflower Research Center in 1982 on the occasion of her 70th birthday".  Be sure to visit this special website dedicated to "our environmental First Lady."

Oh-oh, made a mistake!  What I took to be coreopsis growing along the roadsides is, instead, an invasive weed called bastard cabbage, Rapistrum rugosum, a member of the mustard family native to the Mediterranean.  Just happened to see an article in the April 4^th Dallas Morning News about it.