Retrospective (5/21/2016)
Patch #120 Ripe dewberry
Original Post
In any case, after a couple of travel weeks during which rain fell, there were some new folks in the neighborhood. Please allow me to introduce you to:
Stonecrop ...
Wine cups (so bright the camera couldn't handle it) ...
Rock lettuce ...
Skeleton plant ...
Nerve ray ...
which was one of the first plants I learned when we moved here, but I still think of it as the "present plant" because of the unusual square bud ...
Ratany, which is my newest flower friend ...
Mexican feather grass ...
Beautiful, but unwelcome Malta yellow star (a prolific invasive and a source of much weeding activity on my part) ...
Two-leaved senna ...
Skullcap (I think) ...
And while the butterflies move too fast for me to photograph, the caterpillars left some lacy traces on the mountain laurel ...
I saved the best for last: ripe dewberries ...
seven of which I ate, one by one, with just a bit of dark chocolate ...
What a treat!
I had heard of Texas wildflowers but had no idea there were so many. Dewberries look like blackberries, but I don't see the thorny vines. Do they taste like blackberries?
ReplyDeleteAnd these are just the wildflowers I know ... There are many more I have yet to ID!
DeleteThe dewberries are much smaller than domestic blackberries and the vines are more recumbent than blackberry canes tend to be. The thorns are smaller, but fierce (as I discovered when I dropped a berry and tried to pick it up). I tend to like raspberries more than blackberries, and I find the dewberries more to my taste as well.
They remind me of the wild raspberries we used to pick along the roads on Shelter Island. Those small, tart wineberries (as we called them) were worth risking poison ivy. I wish I had the battered blue enamel bucket we used for picking.