A Field Aflame — and the One That Wasn’t

A week ago, a friend invited me to join him for an early-morning walk through an open field in Pflugerville, where wildflowers were growing undisturbed. The day was windy, but the light was generous, and the field had been waiting.

The view was simply beyond my expectations. Firewheels (Gaillardia pulchella) and Stiff Greenthreads (Thelesperma filifolium) covered most of the ground, with a few other wildflowers tucked between them, biding their time to bloom. I chose a couple of photos from that morning and am pairing them here with a third from an earlier walk at Katy Crossing in Georgetown.

As you can see in the featured image, the Pflugerville field offered a remarkable color palette — a quiet riot of reds, yellows, and greens. Wandering through it, I kept stopping to find new compositions. Since I had decided to leave my macro lens at home that morning, every frame was captured with my Sony G 200–600 mm zoom — a long reach that flattened the field into a tapestry of color. Just look at how radiant it all was.

One of our small discoveries that morning was a single Firewheel standing apart from the rest. Its petals had opened into a nearly perfect circle, with hardly a gap or a kink — the kind of symmetry you don’t often see in the wild. We were happy to find it, and even happier to photograph it.

The last image is from a previous walk at Katy Crossing, along the San Gabriel River, and shows an unusual all-yellow Firewheel resting beside one of its more typical neighbors. The standard bloom carries a red center fading to yellow tips; this one had skipped the red entirely. The most likely explanation is a recessive genetic variation that interrupts anthocyanin production — the pigment responsible for the red — while leaving the carotenoids (the yellow) untouched. Less commonly, hybridization with a closely related Gaillardia, or a cool stretch of weather during bud development, can produce the same effect. Whatever the cause, the result is a quietly beautiful exception, all the more striking when set against a normal Firewheel in the frame for comparison. (Incidentally, this image was made with the Tamron lens I was testing a few weeks ago.)

The friend I did this walk with has a wonderful blog in Word Press: Portraits of Wildflowers. I encourage you to visit it. That is the story behind the shots. If you liked this post, you may also be interested in others featuring Firewheel, Georgetown, Katy Crossing, Parks, Pflugerville, San Gabriel Park, Texas, and Wildflowers. Until the next time, keep clicking and capturing the beauty your eyes find.

Posted for Terri’s Flower Hour # 31: Local Lilacs and Lupine.

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Sources

• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — Native Plant Database, Gaillardia pulchella (Firewheel / Indian Blanket). wildflower.org
• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — Native Plant Database, Thelesperma filifolium (Stiff Greenthread). wildflower.org
• USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service — PLANTS Database, Gaillardia pulchella. plants.usda.gov
• Texas Parks and Wildlife Department — Indian Blanket / Firewheel. tpwd.texas.gov
• Royal Horticultural Society — Anthocyanins and flower color. rhs.org.uk
• City of Georgetown, Texas — San Gabriel Park and Katy Crossing trail. georgetown.org