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Herping is a recreational hobby that involves going out into nature and looking for reptiles and amphibians. When you’re looking for herps, it’s important to know what species you can find in your area so that you can target them. For anyone who is new to herping or wants to try it out, here’s a guide I put together outlining some of the reptile and amphibian species you can find around Austin. There will be plenty of pictures that display the key features as well as tables summarizing the differences between similar species.
I’ll be dividing the herps into 4 main categories: snakes, lizards, turtles, and amphibians (including both frogs and salamanders). This part will focus on just snakes for now, but I might make some additional ones later for the other 3 groups.
Snakes
There are many different methods of herping that can be employed to target certain species of snake including: hiking in habitat, flipping cover objects, shining at night, and road cruising. Snakes are a pretty diverse group in the Austin area with at least 20 species you can find around here. Luckily, they are all relatively distinct from one another, although it might be easier to see these characters when you have the snake in hand. Due to the presence of venomous snakes in the area, DO NOT pick up a snake that you are not 100% sure of the ID for. It goes without saying that venomous snake bites are not fun, but some non-venomous snakes can pack a punch too, so keep that in mind if you go for the grab.
Common Colubrids
Water Snakes: Plain-bellied and Diamondback
If you head down to pretty much any creek in Austin, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find at least one water snake as they are a highly aquatic genus of snake. Water snakes are recognizable by their dark vertical bars on their lips, rough scales, and often their propensity to constantly musk and bite. All Nerodia species contain anticoagulant in their saliva, meaning that when they bite, your blood cannot clot efficiently, so you bleed more. Water snakes will also flatten their heads to look more like a cottonmouth (a venomous snake species). That being said, water snakes are nonvenomous, although I don’t recommend getting chewed on for long periods of time.
Juvenile plain-bellied (head on top) and diamondback (head on bottom) water snakes
In Travis County, there are only two species of water snake, the plain-bellied water snake (Nerodia erythrogaster) and the diamondback water snake (Nerodia rhombifer). While at first glance, they may look very similar, a closer inspection reveals some differences in their coloration. When you have the snake in hand, take a look at the belly and you’ll see that there is a difference. As the name suggests, plain-bellied water snakes have very little marking underneath, and their bellies are often yellow (although some individuals in the area can have nice reddish hues). Compared to the adults, juvenile plain-bellied water snakes are much more starkly contrasted with brown blotches separated by light bands. On the other hand, the diamondback water snake’s belly is typically more orange with dark triangular patches dotting it. In addition, diamondback water snakes have more vibrantly colored eyes, usually a deep orange or red color. The diamondback water snake’s common name refers to how the dark crosses on their back create greenish diamonds between the patterning.
Adult plain-bellied water snake (unhappy)Adult diamondback water snake (also unhappy but not biting thankfully)
Species
Labial bars
Belly
Eye
Back
Plain-bellied water snake
Strong
Plain and yellow, sometimes red
Yellow
Dark blotches with light bands in juveniles, darker and faded in adults
Diamondback water snake
Weak
Orange with some spots
Orange or red
Dark crosses that form green diamonds between
Western Ribbon Snake and Garter Snakes
The western ribbon snake is another aquatic snake species, often being found in and around bodies of water. They are characterized by their long slender bodies and stripes running from head to tail. Across Texas, the ribbon snake’s dorsal stripe (the one that runs down the spine) has a tremendous amount of color variation across the snake’s range from orange in Dallas to yellow in Houston, but here in Austin, we have the redstripe ribbon snake subspecies with a, you guessed it, red dorsal stripe. In addition, they have black lateral stripes, which are on either side of the dorsal stripe. Ribbon snakes are also pretty bitey, and while they don’t have anticoagulant saliva like the Nerodia, a bite from a big one could still be pretty annoying.
On warm nights, ribbon snakes can be found sleeping in trees
Adult redstripe ribbon snake with a vibrant red dorsal stripe
The easiest way to identify a ribbon snake is to look at the head. The top half of the head is black while the bottom half is plain. There is also a small rectangular white patch of scales directly in front of the eyes in the direction of the nose (see above pictures). Most importantly, ribbon snakes lack labial bars (like the ones seen water snakes), which is an important distinction from the rest of the snakes in the genus Thamnophis that have black labial bars. The checkered garter snake is the only one that doesn’t have a colored dorsal stripe, and it has alternating black squares that run down its brown back. The black-necked garter snake and the Texas garter snake both have an orange dorsal stripe, but the black-necked garter snake typically has much bolder black markings on the labial bars and back, while the Texas garter snake’s back is more uniformly black.
Labial bars on an adult checkered garter snake (from @caudisona on iNaturalist)
Ribbon snakes and black-necked garter snake
Labial bars on an adult black-necked garter snake
Texas garter snake (from @hydaticus on iNaturalist)
Species
Labial bars
Back
Western ribbon snake
None, thin white rectangle in front of eye
Red dorsal stripe, black lateral stripes
Black-necked garter snake
Black
Orange dorsal stripe, large black blotches becoming solid line near tail
Checkered garter snake
Black
White or cream dorsal stripe, black square blotches
Texas garter snake
Black
Orange dorsal stripe, black lateral stripes
Rat Snakes: Western and Great Plains
Like the water snakes, Austin is home to two rat snake species: the western rat snake and the Great Plains rat snake. Although the western rat snake is much more commonly encountered, both species can look similar particularly the juveniles, but there are a few ways to distinguish them. The first place I like to look is the belly. In the Great Plains rat snake, it is white with some small distinct black squares, but in the western rat snake, the belly is usually cream-colored with more unclear brown rectangular blotches. Additionally, Great Plains rat snakes have a dark eye stripe that starts at the eye and continues past the mouth and into the neck, whereas this dark eye stripe in western rat snakes abruptly ends at the mouth. Adult rat snakes are slightly easier to identify as western rat snakes often get darker or more colorful with age (see 4th picture below), but adult Great Plains rat snakes tend to look similar to their younger selves.
Juvenile western rat snake showing belly pattern
Juvenile Great Plains rat snake showing belly pattern and continuing eye stripe
Juvenile western rat snake showing abruptly ending eye stripe
Adult western rat snake found roaming the streets of the UT Austin campus
Bullsnake (from @baxter-slye on iNaturalist)
Another species I’ll add here is the bullsnake, which is a pretty uncommon find for Travis County. Like rat snakes, they can get fairly large, and while their dorsal pattern is similar, their scales often have a darker patch in the center and are much more strongly keeled. They also have black labial bars, especially on the upper lip that isn’t typically seen in rat snakes.
Species
Belly
Scales
Eye stripe
Life stage
Western rat snake
More blurry, brown blotches
Weakly keeled
Abruptly stops at the mouth
Darker or more colorful adults than juveniles
Great Plains rat snake
White with small black squares
Weakly keeled
Continues through mouth and into neck
Adults often look similar to juveniles
Bullsnake
White or yellow
Strongly keeled
None
Adults often look similar to juveniles
The Fast Four: Whips, Racer, and Patchnose
I have lumped these 4 snakes together because they all occupy a similar niche in their environment. The coachwhip, striped whipsnake, eastern yellow-bellied racer, and Texas patchnose snake are all diurnal, meaning they are active during the day, and they hunt by actively chasing down other animals, typically fast lizards like whiptails. Since they have such good daytime vision, they are very accurate in their strikes and sometimes lunge for the face, so watch out if you want to pick one up. The Texas patchnose is probably the easiest to identify because its main distinguishing feature is in the name. Patchnoses have an enlarged rostral scale (the one at the tip of the snout), which differentiates it from the striped whipsnake, another species with black and white lateral stripes. However, striped whipsnakes have a body plan much more similar to the coachwhip (also in the genus Masticophis), and they can have pinkish belly coloration too.
Texas patchnose snake
Striped whipsnake (from @gcwarbler on iNaturalist)
Adult coachwhip with brown coloration and faint banding
Coachwhips and racers are both fairly large-bodied snakes but have slightly different patterns. Coachwhips are named that way because their scales supposedly resemble a braided whip, due to each scale having a gradient from light to dark. Generally, coachwhips in Austin are brown and sometimes banded, but they become more pink as you go west and much darker as you go east. Eastern yellow-bellied racers on the other hand have a more greenish-blue coloration on the back, and as their name says, they have yellow bellies. However, if you come across a juvenile racer, you will see that it has a wildly different look because it has a much more brown coloration with more striking patterns. But they still have a racer head shape and may show some yellow on the belly depending on how old the snake is.
Adult eastern yellow-bellied racer
Juvenile eastern yellow-bellied racer
Species
Belly color
Rostral scale
Back
Texas patchnose snake
White
Enlarged
Yellow dorsal stripe with black lateral lines
Striped whipsnake
White but can be pink
Normal
Black dorsal stripe with white or pink lateral lines
Coachwhip
White
Normal
Braided whip, each scale with brown gradient
Eastern yellow-bellied racer
Yellow
Normal
Uniform greenish-blue color
Master of Camouflage: Rough Green Snake
One of my absolute favorite snake species is the rough green snake, and fortunately, they are extremely easy to identify. The most similar other snake I can think of is a yellow-bellied racer, but rough green snakes are much thinner and way more vibrantly green. During the daytime, they are almost impossible to spot unless you get lucky with one crossing the trail. However, when it gets dark, they go to sleep in the trees, and it becomes super simple to locate them by shining a flashlight (I typically see them in foliage adjacent to creeks). Since their bellies are purely white, they are extremely reflective and will stick out when you shine your flashlight at them.
Rough green snake shined at night (snakes don’t have eyelids so yes, this one is asleep)
Rough green snake out in the open during the day
Species
Main features
Rough green snake
Bright green back, reflective white belly
Drama Queen: Eastern Hognose Snake
This unhappy hognose was hooding up and hissing, but luckily it didn’t play dead
This is a species that is super interesting behaviorally. Hognose snakes are well-known for their theatrics with their displays often consisting of hooding up (kind of like a cobra), hissing, musking, and playing dead (also called thanatosis). The last behavior is a last resort that hognoses do when they are too stressed, so it is best not to handle them if they start to show signs, especially if they start curling their head back. When they “die”, they will musk all over their body, stick out their tongue, and lay belly-up until the coast is clear. If you do find a snake and it hasn’t noticed you yet or is not doing any of these behaviors, look for an upturned snout, which is a character that hognose snakes have.
Species
Main features
Eastern hognose snake
False hood, upturned snout
Kingsnakes: Speckled and Prairie
Kingsnakes are named so because they are known to regularly consume other snakes. They have even evolved resistance to some snake venoms, so they can consume vipers just by overpowering them with their robust jaws. The kingsnake genus Lampropeltis translates to “shiny shield”, which is a perfectly accurate description of their extremely smooth scales. The speckled kingsnake is pretty distinctive: it’s a stark black snake dotted with yellow to white spots on each scale. In Austin, the speckled kingsnake pattern can almost look banded due to intergrade influence from the desert kingsnake. The prairie kingsnake is often easily confused with the Great Plains rat snake as their dorsal patterns are very similar. In fact, I thought the prairie king in this picture was a Great Plains rat snake when I first road cruised it. However, the easiest way I determined it was actually a prairie kingsnake was by examining the belly. Great Plains rat snakes will have small black squares, while prairie kingsnakes do not.
Speckled kingsnake (from @theherper on iNaturalist)
Prairie kingsnake
Species
Main features
Speckled kingsnake
Black body with yellow/white speckles
Prairie kingsnake
Similar to Great Plains rat snake but with unmarked belly
Too Many Fossorials: Earth Snakes, Blind Snakes, Flat-headed Snake, Ground Snake, Brown Snake, Lined Snake, and Ringneck
This group contains all of the fossorial snakes, which means that they spend the majority of their life underground. There are a lot of fossorial snake species in Austin, and while many do look similar, they often have different patterning. The best way to find fossorial snakes is by flipping pieces of cover, such as rock, logs, or even artificial cover. When flipping, it’s imperative that you put that piece of cover back exactly how you found it so that the micro-environment underneath does not get ruined.
There are two earth snake species in Austin, the rough earth snake and the smooth earth snake with the rough earth snake being far more abundant. One of the main differences between them is that rough earth snakes have keeled scales (each scale has a raised ridge through the middle), giving them a more textured look. Smooth earth snakes are pretty orange in this area, and sometimes they will have tiny brown spots on the back.
Smooth earth snake (from @tommyd on iNaturalist)
Rough earth snake
In Austin, there are now two blind snake species: the native Texas blind snake and the non-native Brahminy blind snake. Texas blind snakes tend to be pink with scales that you can easily differentiate. Since they are more pale, you can actually see their eyes clearly (blind snakes are not completely blind, they have skin growing over their eyes, so they only use them to detect presence of light). Brahminy blind snakes, however, are much darker, almost purple in my opinion, so the eye is harder to see. The Brahminy blind snake is actually native to southeast Asia, but they arrived in the US via flowerpots, meaning they are most commonly found in urban areas near places that use nursery plants. Both species have a little spike at the tip of their tail that they use to stab predators in hopes of distracting them so they can get away. I’ve anecdotally noticed that the Brahminy blind snake tails are pointier, and they seem to be more proactive with stabbing. The diet of both Texas and Brahminy blind snakes mainly consists of ant larvae, so sometimes when you flip rocks that have tons of ants underneath, don’t forgot to look for blind snakes.
Texas blind snake
Brahminy blind snake
Both the lined snake and the DeKay’s brown snake have a white dorsal stripe, so they may look similar initially. In brown snakes, the area behind the eyes is mostly white with a darker brown patch on the neck. One key characteristic for the DeKay’s brown snake is the row of paired spots that border the white dorsal stripe, whereas the lined snake usually doesn’t have regularly spaced paired spots lining it. Typically, the patterning is more contrasted on the lined snake, but brown snakes can be quite variable too. If you’re unsure, the best way to identify a lined snake is to flip it over and see the paired row of black semicircles on the belly.
DeKay’s brown snake
Lined snake (from @ah_wildlife on iNaturalist)
The most obvious feature of the prairie ringneck snake is the yellow ring on their neck. They also have a bright yellow belly with irregular black spots that transitions into a more orange tail that often curls when in a defensive position. One snake that could potentially be confused with a ringneck is a juvenile rough earth snake, which has a white ring around its neck, but ringnecks have smooth scales while rough earth snakes have keeled scales, not to mention the brightly colored ringneck belly.
Prairie ringneck snake showing yellow ring on neck and curled orange tail
Prairie ringneck snake showing belly pattern with irregular black spots
These last two species look somewhat similar, but they are not closely related to each other. Both the flat-headed snake and the ground snake have a shovel-shaped head that they use for burrowing in soft soil. However, when you flip them over, only the flat-headed snake has a brightly colored belly. Most flat-headed snakes will have some kind of orange or salmon belly coloration, while ground snake bellies are plain yellow or beige. Ground snakes can be quite variable, having dark bands or even red bands, but around Austin, the plain brown one is the most common morph. Ground snakes may also resemble smooth earth snakes at first glance, but ground snake scales appear larger and are more square-shaped.
Flat-headed snake showing salmon belly color
Ground snake plain brown morph
Species
Scales
Back
Belly
Tail
Rough earth snake
Keeled
Brown
White
Normal
Smooth earth snake
Smooth
Brown/orange
White
Normal
Texas blind snake
Smooth
Pink
Light pink
Spike
Brahminy blind snake
Smooth
Purple
Light purple
Spike
DeKay’s brown snake
Keeled
White dorsal stripe bordered with paired spots
White
Normal
Lined snake
Keeled
White dorsal stripe with gray lateral stripes
White with paired row of black semicircles
Normal
Prairie ringneck snake
Smooth
Black
Yellow with black spots
Orange, often curling in defense
Flat-headed snake
Smooth
Brown
Orange or salmon
Normal
Ground snake
Smooth
Brown
Yellow/beige
Normal
Danger: Venomous!
In Travis County, there are 4 venomous snake species: 3 are vipers and the last is an elapid, the Texas coral snake. There’s a popular saying to tell if a tricolored snake is a coral snake. “Red on black, friend of Jack. Red on yellow, kill a fellow.” For the purpose of identifying snakes in the United States only, this rule applies, so if you see a red band bordering a yellow band, it is a coral snake. There are populations of coral snakes in Austin that are anerythristic, meaning that they lack red pigment, so in those cases, you should look to see where the red color should be and assess if it is a coral snake or not (see second picture below). Many other snakes, such as milk snakes, scarlet snakes, and longnose snakes are all thought to be nonvenomous coral snake mimics, but none of those species are found in the Austin area. Coral snakes are extremely unpredictable and erratic in their movements, so as long as you respect the snake and maintain your distance, you will be safe.
Anerythristic Texas coral snake (from @hydaticus on iNaturalist)
Western diamondback rattlesnake
The last 3 snakes of this part of the guide are all the vipers in Austin, which are the western diamondback rattlesnake, copperhead, and cottonmouth. Here, we only have one species of rattlesnake, so if you see a rattle on a snake, the ID should be self-explanatory. If the rattle is hidden, the brown diamond pattern on the back is also indicative of a rattlesnake. The other two snakes, the copperhead and cottonmouth, can look similar, but there are some key differences. As juveniles, both species have caudal lures, which means the tip of their tail is neon yellow in color. They have similarly shaped bands on the sides, but the margins of those bands in cottonmouths are more jagged than those seen in copperheads. Their ecology is also vastly different as cottonmouths are semi-aquatic, so you’ll find them most often near or even in the water. Cottonmouths get their name from a defensive display that involves gaping open their mouth, revealing a fluffy bright white interior reminiscent of cotton. The best way to tell them apart is by the presence of a dark mask usually outlined with lighter colors in cottonmouths. Copperheads have a lot more orange (or copper) on their bands compared to cottonmouths, and their head is a more uniform copper color. They prefer to roam the forest, especially in the summer, when copperheads even become arboreal as they search the trees for emerging cicadas to consume.
Northern cottonmouth gaping its mouth
Broad-banded copperhead in a tree before feasting on a cicada
Species
Pattern
Main features
Texas coral snake
Alternation of red, yellow, black, and yellow bands
“Red on yellow, kill a fellow”
Western diamondback rattlesnake
Diamond pattern on back
Tail modified to rattle
Northern cottonmouth
Brown bands with jagged margins
Dark mask, gaping white mouth
Broad-banded copperhead
Orange bands with clean, usually white, margins
More copper-colored body
Conclusion
Even this snake ID guide was pretty long, I hope that it was informative and that you maybe learned something. It might seem daunting at first to need to know how to identify this many species, but once you get into the field and start being able to recognize them, I promise it will be worth it. Even if herping is not the thing for you, I still think it’s good to be informed on what snake species live in your area because being able to tell venomous from non-venomous snakes is a skill that I think everyone could benefit from. Please leave a comment to let me know if I should make another herp ID guide (maybe lizards next). Thanks for reading!
All photos were taken by Ashwin Narayanan unless otherwise stated
It was the season of madness. We were all scared to death, holed up in our dorms and not knowing what exactly the future would hold. We went out armed to the teeth with masks and hand sanitizer. Most of the time we spent worshiping the screens that held our classes. In the evenings, I would watch the sunset from my dorm on the 4th floor over Guadalupe.
It was my freshman year at UT. It was supposed to be the time I would find friends and clubs and all sorts of fun classes to take. But that’s nearly impossible when you are living through a pandemic. It seems sort of silly saying all this now, as everyone reading this will know what I am talking about. But maybe some bright eyed freshman of the future won’t know what it was like to live through such a fearful time.
Most of my days were silent. I’d shuffle around in my slippers and go about my daily tasks, really too terrified to do anything else beyond the confines of my dorm. You must understand this was a time when about 1.34 million people had been confirmed to have died due to Covid-19. In only 2 months, this number would very nearly double. We also didn’t have a vaccine until, according to my vaccine card, about March 2021. So all of us were desperately wanting to experience college, but too afraid of catching Covid and well, either getting extremely sick or dying. Add this to my upbringing by a set of parents both in the medical field, and you will understand why I wore and still wear 7 layer masks.
But you aren’t here to hear me drone on about Covid. You’re here to hear about plants and birds and all of those cool things. I promise that I’m getting there. I just need to finish painting a few set pieces and test my lighting program. A scene can make or break a story, you know.
Being cooped up in your dorm room really destroys your mental health. You are alone with your own thoughts almost 24/7. Humans are built to be social. In ye olden days of hunter gathering, it meant survival, so it got hardwired in our brains. Not having connection with others, according to the incredible psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score, 2012), can be a source of many traumas. And I assure you, to many people, it was. People became restless, depressed, anxious, and lonely. Multiple studies have investigated this since. Some claim resilience, and some claim small increases in depression and anxiety. I can at the very least personally attest to worsening mental health during the pandemic. I needed to do something to not go completely bonkers. So I turned to one of the many things that interested me at UT, but one of a few that I would actually feel safe attending.
And so, every day after dinner, I would walk to the UT turtle pond. I remember seeing it on my tour of UT, and being enchanted by the red eared sliders. I would later learn there were many more types of turtles hiding in the waters, and that there was even a small man made waterfall at the back. (At that time, for the whole of 2020, that waterfall was turned off. Imagine my surprise in 2021 when it was turned on!) I would walk past my favorite crossing guard in the world to the cenizo bush, not quite covered in bees like it was in august. I’d look up at the ginkgo trees and marvel at finally seeing their uniquely shaped leaves in person. Brushing my hand among the inland sea oats, I would finally walk under a beautiful and ancient looking tree-like shrub. The leaves were compound, and developing seedpods hung tantalizingly from its branches.
This pic is not mine. I sadly never got a good picture of the sweetwood as I didn’t really know its significance back then. This is from Kathy McWilliams and Scott Fleenor. This is the exact tree I saw, but much younger than it is now.Now THIS pic is mine. The arroyo is that y-shaped trunk at the back left on the ground. You can see a branch reaching up to the windows. It’s a large specimen.
Me being curious me, I found a more developed seedpod and cracked it open. Inside were lovely brown seeds, slightly wrinkled. It was at that point I had the fabulous idea to try and collect seeds from as many plants around UT as I could. And it all started with this tree. Back then, I didn’t have Inaturalist, a lovely little app that helps you identify almost any form of nature you find, so I had no idea what it was. For some reason collecting the seeds was enough and I never bothered to find out what it was.
Years Passed.
I suffered through organic chemistry and subsequently dropped it because I thought a C was a bad grade. (Foolish me!!) I thoroughly enjoyed my Genetics courses with Dr De Lozanne, traveled with fellow Dean’s Scholars to the McDonald observatory, and at some point found our lovely group, becoming the only pre-med student in EEB club at the time. I toured the UT Insect collection, got kicked out of my honors group for not making the grades (oh well it was kind of stuck up anyways), saw a rainbow over Kinsolving, made a few friends, and fangirled over seeing my beloved Atta Texana in person for the first time. I thought about Big Mouth Heron, finally changed my major to EEB as I was done with the stress of becoming a doctor destroying me, experienced the echoes of ACL from the confines of BFL, and made probably my best memory ever swimming with Eliana in Barton Springs.
My beloved Egretta Thula (Snowy Egret). I shot this on my Canon T6i while at Barton Springs with Eliana. She was very supportive of my (respectfully, from a distance) egret chasing adventures. I just can’t get over how their feet look like they stepped in yellow paint.
And then, my mind decided it had enough of struggling with years of trauma I never took care of properly, and my mental health crashed.
The Crash.
Ok, probably not the best thing to put in my first blog post, but I am nothing if not honest.
I took medical leave from UT, and am currently over 6 months out from the day I left. I got proper therapy, started back on medication, and am feeling much better taking time off. But even when I was at my lowest mentally, I was still being a bird nerd and finding my mom had a copy of the Field Guide to Birds of North America and didn’t tell me. (How DARE she!) I started learning all the Latin names for birds in the US that I could. I explored my local neighborhood looking for plants and my beloved Big Mouth Heron (see upcoming blog post, Have you Heard About Big Mouth Heron). Most importantly for this story, I healed and stayed in touch with the Club. I learned what is still my favorite exclamation, Coreopsis cardaminifolia, shared bird pics and marveled at other club member’s bird pics, discovered the difference between real and false dayflowers, and did the best I could from about 160 miles away.
And then one day Arnan (another lovely blog writer, and probably a famous botanist in the making) was talking about how he recorded some small saplings of Arroyo Sweetwood (an endangered Mexican plant) next to the turtle pond. Imagine my surprise upon realizing that the shrub he was describing was, in fact, the one I plucked the seedpods from. Below is my reaction:
(I think this is deserving of a Coreopsis carDAMinifolia)
I rushed upstairs into my room. I rifled through drawers and looked on top of my table, and behold… The plastic bag of seeds.
At the time, it was also filled with dove feathers I had collected from around campus. It also used to be the home of a snickerdoodle from Kins that was promptly eaten, and the bag repurposed. The dark seeds are from Red Yucca. The lighter ones are the Arroyo Sweetwood.
I triumphantly sent a picture of my seeds, and then discussed the potential ecological consequences of trying to cultivate these seeds. I was terrified of messing up any local ecosystems, but concluded that my neighborhood was already stuffed with non-natives, and the Arroyo Sweetwood was most certainly closer to native than any of them. It also is endangered, so I wanted to help this adorable plant survive.
Learning and Growing with Arroyo
And so my 1 dollar germination tank was made. Ok, I lied. It was actually free because I used a repurposed and washed Chinese Food Container and drew on it.
1 Dollar Germination Tank my beloved
I carefully placed each seed on a wet bed of paper towels. I also placed the container in a spot indoors that I knew would get some sunlight in the morning. I was too scared of leaving it outdoors as the temperature in Houston can never, ever make up its mind.
The seeds, put on a wet paper towel on day 1. (Monday, April 17, 2023)
Day 4:
Two of the seeds were swollen.
(Top left and bottom right seeds are swollen)
I was, naturally, excited. Would they germinate after 2 years in a snickerdoodle bag? Who knew! But they were getting closer to it. After talking with Arnan, we determined that the seeds may need to be scarified in order to grow. Seeds, naturally exposed to the elements and the stomachs of many animals, usually have their seed coats worn away. Some plants, like the Chilepequin pepper, have evolved to only grow in those conditions. Other plants have very tough seed coats for protection that it is impossible to get any sort of water or air through, let alone a sprout. The Arroyo Sweetwood was no exception. The seeds looked swollen because, as I found out, they were full of air from the developing seed inside. Taking a small knife, I carefully made small cuts in each seed coat in order to help them along. The 2 swollen ones were softer and the seed coat was like thick leather. The others were more akin to chipping away at a rock. In case this doesn’t work, I have 10 more seeds (seen in the bag previously) to plant.
Day 6:
All of the seeds were starting to swell! It looks like scarification was the right move. I turned the seeds carefully over each day to watch for mold. The stains underneath the seeds I assumed were from the coats. The box also had a sweet smell to it. With a generous spritz of water, I closed the box until the next day…
Day 7
Creeping with white filament fingers, they assaulted my seeds overnight. Opening the box the next afternoon, I was greeted with… MOLD!
I instantly got new paper towels, and hurriedly took the box outside. I started by cleaning each seed carefully with paper towels. The mold appeared to just be on the seed coat, and was probably due to over watering. On the plus side, the seeds continued to look swollen, and were a bit darker in hue. It was just a waiting game from here on out…
The container was cleaned as well, and the seeds laid on a new paper towel. I misted them lightly and shut the box for the day.
And, Suddenly, Now.
And so we come to now. It’s currently Day 8, and the seeds looked pretty much the same as yesterday. Realizing that I’ve run out of material to write about due to these seeds taking their sweet time, I’ve appended a “Part 1” to the title of this post. I still want to get it out, and feel it’s getting a little long anyways, so I feel a break is appropriate. Go get yourself a drink, a snack, or if so inclined, a nap. I’ll still be here worrying about my little Arroyo, and probably will have another blog post out before you know it. Crossing my fingers these little seeds grow!
Getting the chance to germinate endangered seeds is thrilling. To watch these little seeds grow each day is a joy, and I approach my One Dollar Germination Tank like a child opening holiday presents. Discussing the sheer chance of me accidentally collecting these seeds with my sister, she pointed out that if I was looking for a sign of what I want to pursue in life… Well this was it. I’m already well versed and interested in conservational botany, so for now that’s where I’ll chart my course towards.
You might be wondering: why would anyone in the right mind wake up at 6:25 in the morning, during the first day of spring break? Well, let me explain.
I am a member of a site called iNaturalist. iNaturalist is many things. It is a tool you can use to identify your local insects, birds, plants, and other organisms; a guide to your local flora and fauna; a method to learn about the nature around us; a gateway for people to contribute to biodiversity data and even scientific research. But iNaturalist is also a community, a community for nature lovers to interact. High school students interact with retired seniors; scientists with private landowners; amateurs with academics. All kinds of interactions for the broader goal of documenting the natural world, and for enriching and building upon each other’s knowledge.
We are fortunate to have a large community of naturalists around Texas. And for some of those people, they don’t just interact online. Oftentimes iNatters (as we call ourselves) get together to do hikes and document nature together. We’ll host things called bioblitzes where we get together and try to document as many organisms as possible. Or one person will message another and they’ll go on a hike together. Generally though, these events (well, the ones in Texas at least) happen closer to the DFW area than in Austin, which have made them hard for me to attend.
Such was my excitement, then, when I was suddenly notified of a certain event going on around Austin. James Bailey, @silversea_starsong on iNaturalist, is on “eternal mission to document the life that calls this planet home.” Aka, document as many species as possible. As of now, he has documented some 20,000 species of flora, fauna, and other life forms, and has documented the most species of any iNatter on the platform.
His eternal mission is what brought him back to Austin. Yes, he has been to Austin before, in 2018. But he has come back to find more, March 7-13. And hosting him in Austin will be none other than @gcwarbler, Chuck Sexton. Chuck, now retired, was a longtime Texas ecologist (check his iNat profile for more information), and is a prominent member of the iNaturalist community within Austin. Chuck planned out a full itenerary so that James could touch all the highlights of the area… and invited any iNatters who would like to join in:
Naturally, I was more than happy to join in. I had already linked up with many Texas iNatters during a bioblitz at the Hidden Springs Preserve in Florence, TX. This event would give me an opportunity to connect with many of the same people again, as well as a chance meet some other prominent community members. The first few days were unfortunately during my class days, but spring break was right after. So I could attend both the events on the 11th and the 12th, Saturday and Sunday.
Today (Saturday), Chuck would be taking James to Hornsby Bend, possibly the best place for birding in Central Texas. They planned to meet up at 9 pm. However, I would have to take public transportation since I was still at UT Austin and had no personal automobile at my disposal. It was only supposed to be over an hour to commute down to Hornsby Bend. There and back. So naturally, I had to set aside time to make this work. Thus, 6:25 am.
I grabbed my adventure pack (as I call it) with all my gear. As always, I counted off my gear to make sure I didn’t forget essentials:
Lanyard with iNat button pin and 40x magnifying loupe. The button pin is my secret symbol. Most people will pass by without batting an eye. Those who do take note of it will know exactly what it means. The 40x magnifying loupe I obtained spring of 2021, after realizing how many botanical characteristics were extraordinarily difficult to view from the naked eye. I can also hold it over my phone camera to get some good macro shots, although the depth of field is incredibly small.
UT sling pouchwith stuff Filled with notecards and a pencil which I use to draw things. To describe plants using words is about as effective as describing a painting with words. It’s much better to explain botany through illustrations than with just words. There are also some other essentials such as a pen, sharpie, and lens cloth (for glasses, binoculars, any sort-of lens really).
Water bottle with accessories I always carry a water bottle with me, at all times, ever since a certain event where a drink of water saved me from certain trouble. Well, there was still trouble afterwards, but without it things might’ve been worse. Story for another time. I hang it from my belt using an S-biner. Attached to the S-biner is some hand sanitizer, a pair of mini-scissors, and a Leatherman pocket knife gifted to me from my Eagle Court of Honor.
Tilley Hat I had a hat that was a mockup of a Tilley, but never realized it. When that one wore out, I decided I might as well get the real thing. I bought one used off Ebay for half the price, and sling it across my shoulder when not in use. It has become a constant and handy companion, and I consider it akin to Indiana Jones’s hat. I almost never leave without it.
Phone For many reasons, but most importantly in case I come across any interesting plants I wish to take photos of.
Mask Not used too often anymore, but just in case.
Bandana Useful for any variety of things from keeping your ears warm on a chilly morning to wiping down a table using alcohol from my hand sanitizer.
I then headed off to the bus station.
A digression or two:
This wasn’t the only fun in the field event I had these couple of days.
The day before, I woke up around 7 am to go with an EEB club friend to Brackenridge Field Lab (BFL). The purpose of this excursion was to do a quick survey of the flora along the path of a future plant walk with eminent field botanist Bill Carr. Bill was not familiar with the site so I decided I would scout it out a little beforehand, as well as get my first look at BFL since I had never been there before.
The day after this day, I woke up around 6:30 am to attend another iNatter event within this “Austin tour,” a rundown of Balcones Canyonlands NWR, starting at Warbler Vista and moving up Cow Creek Road, ending at Doeskin Ranch in the afternoon. Let me just say: that was a very full and fun day. But it is not part of this story.
I also did a fair bit of field excursions on Tuesday and Wednesday. In fact, the general time period between 3/8 and 3/15 just blended together into one giant bioblitz for me. I saw at least 30 new species of plants, within the span of several days. 142 plant observations just from Friday to Sunday—I haven’t uploaded anything from Mon-Wed yet. And photos? Well… at least 750. Let’s just say, it’s been a very good spring break.
Also, you might be wondering from the title: what in the world is a botanistrum? Put simply, I am to a botanist as Malvastrum is to Malva.
I sit at a very interesting spot between normal citizen and botanist. On one hand, I know more botanical knowledge and skills than what an average U.S. citizen would reasonably obtain. Case-in-point: the average U.S. citizen does not know how to use the Flora of North Central Texas. On the other hand, I know much less about plants than a typical trained botanist would. I have yet to fully understand the concepts of phylogeny, or ecological aspects of plants, and a fair bit of other things.
So does that make me a plant enthusiast? Yes, but more than that. Because at the same time, I am also trying to become a botanist. I share many traits with botanists: for example, I fully understand and embrace the term “botany crawl.” In fact, I think I can relate better to the average botanist than I can to the average person. But I am not a botanist, although that doesn’t stop people from thinking I am one.
So I searched for a proper term, and finding that such term did not exist, I created one for myself. Botanistrum. “-astrum” or “-istrum” is a Latin suffix which indicates a partial but incomplete likeness to something. Thus, Malvastrum indicates a partial but incomplete likeness to Malva. And I, the botanistrum, have a partial but incomplete similarity to a botanist. It fits very well for me. Never mind that the Latin suffix tends to have a derogatory connotation—I take charge of that and turn it into a source of pride.
7:45 am – Bus on Route 20 picks me up
I use the Citymapper app to navigate around Austin. It’s the same app my family used to navigate around London and Toronto during our summer vacation in 2021 (summer before college). It also has the nifty ability to save travel routes for offline use, which is the icon with the star on the top-right.
Planned route:
Bus 20 to ABIA Lower Level – 7:46 am at Guadalupe / W. 21st Street 22 stops to 6605 Riverside / Vargas Estimated time: 29 minutes
Bus 271 to Del Valle High – 8:17 at 6605 Riverside / Vargas 7 stops to SH 71 / Cheriot Estimated time: 15 minutes
Walk to Austin Water Center Estimated time: 25 minutes
8:15-8:20 am – I get off… at the wrong stop
Ok, it wasn’t that bad. I got off one stop before mine, 5925 Riverside / Grove. The stop I was supposed to be at was only one block down, and my other bus on route 271 would arrive in 10ish minutes, since my bus had arrived a little early. Technically, I could’ve gotten back on after realizing my mistake, because there was a red light and the bus didn’t leave immediately. But I didn’t feel a need to. I had plenty of time! I began walking down to the—
~5 minutes after 8:15-8:20 am – Bus on Route 271 barrels right past me
and doesn’t stop at the stop I’m supposed to be at because no one’s there. It shrinks as it heads further down the road and vanishes from site.
A bad drawing since i didn’t take any photos of this unforeseen event.
For a moment, I stand there, completely dumbfounded. Then, I break out into uncontrollable laughter.
Oh, of course. That was definitely 5 minutes. Very funny. I looked down at the Citymapper. It said the bus was due in 3 minutes. I shouted at the sky:
“Thanks for nothing, Citymapper!”
And then continued laughing.
See, the next bus on this route arrived in 45 minutes. 45 minutes! That would be 9:05 am by the time that bus arrives! And then another 45 minutes to get to Hornsby Bend, so I would arrive at 9:45, maybe 9:50. Clearly this was not a good option.
Ok. Maybe that was a fluke. Maybe that bus was just some other bus and the real 271 would come once the Citymapper app said it would. I waited at the stop for another 3 minutes. Due in three minutes turned into two, two into one, one into zero. Nothing happened. Then, one did a complete 180 and turned into 43 minutes. Great. That obviously didn’t work.
I tried to find another route to Hornsby Bend. 271 was a no. 20 kept going as well but that took even longer than 92. Maybe I could try Lyft? But I had never used Lyft and when I tried to sign up it made a big fuss about my address not matching up with my phone number and whatnot, so I gave up on that.
Wait. What if I just walk over there?
I looked at Google Maps. Well, it doesn’t look that far away, I reasoned. I could walk that in maybe 45 minutes, arrive at 9:15ish. That would be much better, I would arrive much sooner. It must’ve slipped past my mind how long a distance his actually was, looking at it on my phone screen; the walking distance from just the last stop to Hornsby was 25 minutes! I didn’t realize this because when I inputted the walking directions from my location to Google, it suggested that I walk around 3/4s of the perimeter of Austin Bergstorm International Airport.
3 hours and 11 minutes. Well duh, I’d be walking around a literal international airport.Terrible idea. But what if I just walk along the same path the the bus took, along the side of the road…
8 minutes by car. Well, it wouldn’t be too much slower to go by foot then, right? Google Maps wasn’t going to show the route because there was probably no sidewalk there and thus no pedestrian access. But highways have shoulder lanes and I could probably walk along there, or along the grassy area next to the highway. Not too sure about any crossings, but I was sure I could find a way. Plus, walking around the entire airport probably added at least two hours to the travel time.
So my mind decided. I was not going to wait 40 minutes for a bus to ride 15 minutes to the stop, when I could walk the same amount of time or less to that same stop. Plus, I could do some iNatting along the way, roadside botany, perhaps find some cool plants. I figured I’d be there by 9:15-9:30
In hindsight, it may have been faster—and probably safer—to take the bus. But in the moment, there seemed no better option. So I walked.
Part 2: Journey to the East
You might be thinking, ‘Arnan, you’re crazy! Who in the right mind would do what you just decided to do???”
I agree, you’re absolutely right. I am definitely—to some extent—crazy. But not that crazy.
See, I was well-equipped for this trip. Perhaps overprepared. After all, “Be Prepared” is the scout motto, and I am a scout. My iNaturalist username makes that pretty clear. But to bring the point home, let’s go over some of the other things I was carrying that day.
In addition to all that equipment I listed out earlier, dangling off of me in various places, I carry a backpack. And that backpack contains:
Food: Specifically, about 6 fig bars, 4 granola bars and a little more stuff. Fig bars are my preferred travel food—glorified hardtack rations, packing carbs, lipids and proteins in one neat package. They won’t spoil, melt into mush, or crumble into bits. I call the “waybread.” The granola bars are to fulfill the occasional need for an influx of quick carbs.
A second water bottle: I long figured out that one water bottle was not enough for my excusions. So I carry a second one in my backpack. Honestly I might even consider getting a third. Or maybe I just need larger water bottles.
A power bank: Even on short trips or around campus. It just comes in handy! During a campout in the fall I drained practically all my phone battery and in order to continue the important duty of taking pictures of plants I hiked all the way up to the host’s camp site to ask to borrow some electricity to charge my phone. I now carry it in my backpack wherever I go to avoid such a debacle from occuring again. Fully charged, that thing can fill up my phone to a full charge at least 4 times over. And a long USB cable allows me to connect it to my phone while retaining the ability to use said phone.
First aid kit: With about all the essentials. Antibiotic cream, band-aids, alcohol wipes, tweezers, gauze, moleskin, and more. Kept in a neat waterproof stuff sack which I obtained for a low price at DAISO.
Sunscreen and bug lotion
Lots of other things which I won’t go over
It was just one day when my scoutmaster showed his daypack to us that did it. “I carry this around with me everywhere.” I looked, I learned, and now I carry stuff around everywhere too. Having an offline map of the Austin area on Google Maps was also very useful. Overprepared.
And not to mention, I had plenty of experience hiking. Heck, I went to Philmont in 2019! This was just that, except… flatter. I can deal with this!
So I head on my journey, and travel music immediately starts playing in my head. No, seriously. Ranging from from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Fellowship theme from the LOTR’s movie, CCTV Journey to the West theme etc. I have a mental soundtrack that I often play during my life. It’s great. And of course, there were plants to see too!
8:30 – 10:40 am – I walk to Hornsby Bend
At first, I had sidewalk to use, walking along Riverside Drive. But I knew that once I reached the highway, there was no guarantee of sidewalk. Google Maps made that pretty clear for me. I figured that all highways have a shoulder lane, so I could just follow the shoulder of the highway to my destination. Even then, there was no knowing if there was indeed a clear and safe way forward.
8:25 am: I find weird onions
Ok, this was technically still when I was weighing my options and hadn’t decided to walk there yet, but who cares?
I knew just about as soon as I found this that this was an Allium. Aka the onions. The genus Allium includes onions, garlics, chives, garlic chives, and leeks. All of them share that same pungent oniony-garlic smell, which makes it easy to tell them apart from toxic lookalikes.
This one I suppose is Allium canadense, Canadian meadow garlic. See, some varieties of that species have an interesting party trick where instead of growing flowers on their inflorescences, they grow little bulbs on the top, bulblets. These then fall to the ground and grow into new plants. I’ve thought about growing such wild onions/garlics just because of that. You could just collect the bulblets without having to dig up the plant! Our other native species, Allium drummondii, does not do this trick, so that makes it probable for A. canadense, unless it happens to be some other introduced species that also produces bulblets.
8:45-8:50 am – I reach the intersection with SH 71, crossed two intersection
Luckily, at the intersection where I reached SH 71, there were signaled crosswalks to help cross the intersection to the other side. But there was no sidewalk along the highway, so I then continued along the grasslands along the side of the highway or on the shoulder lane. It was a surreal scene. Cars, trucks and occasional semi-wheelers whizzing past me on the highway while I followed them on foot. A small traveler in a world of urban sprawl, a pedestrian among the automobiles.
Generally I stayed among the wildflowers if I could. The cars were ear-deafeningly loud, and while the chances of a rogue car skirting the shoulder lane were probably slim, I prefered to keep my chances down. occasionally there’d be a bridge and I’d be forced to walk the shoulder, staying to the right to keep my distance from my fellow travelers zipping by. I now digress to present some plant finds along the highway:
8:51 am – I find a cool parasitic plant, Phelipanche nana
Phelipanche nana, the Dwarf sorrel broomrape. This hemi-parasitic plant was an ocasional resident of the grassy areas along the highway. The plants are parasitic, getting their nutrients from the surrounding grasses and forbs. Makes sense because it’s in the Broomrape family, Orobanchaceae—most of those plants are partly or fully parasitic, such as with the false foxgloves (Agalinis) and the paintbrushes (Castillea). Speaking of which I did find a paintbrush too, Castilleja indivisa, the Texas paintbrush.
8:53 am – A young Castilleja indivisa
Unlike the other two examples mentioned, though, Phelipanche nana is nonnative, and apparently is also considered a notious weed in the U.S.
~8:55-9:00 am – I cross my first highway off-ramp/on-ramp
ARNAN!!! WHAT??? YOU CROSSED A HIGHWAY ON-RAMP???
Relax. Yes, I crossed a highway on-ramp. Several, actually, if we’re including on-ramps and off-ramps. Yes, the cars are not obligated to stop on the highway off-ramps/on-ramps, and they are moving at high speeds. But it’s just one lane, and the land is pretty flat so there’s good visibility. And I am already a cautious driver… generally I won’t leave on a right turn until ideally the lane I wish to turn into is completely clear.
I watched the lanes carefully, cars whizzing by several meters away, waiting for an opening to dash through. Once both lanes were clear, I quickly hopped the road and continued on my path.
Cut to sweeping scene showing me walking along the highway shoulder, cars whizzing by, zooming out into the sprawling urban landscape.
This spot along the bridge was the only real spot where I was forced to stick to the shoulder, since we were crossing over 183.
Let me reiterate the surrealness of it all. There’s tons of cars, trucks, and even 18-wheelers whizzing by to the left of me on the highway. Whizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! Whizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! Whizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! All that, the entire length of the highway, streaking right past while I walk along. And then, of course, we’re right by the Austin Bergstrom International Airport too! So there’s also big airliners flying in the sky but also pretty close to the ground since they’re landing at the airport every now and then, making a big
…right over my head. Staying among the wildflowers generally kept distance from cars up and noise from them down. This spot along my journey was perhaps the most intense, perhaps also because I’d be walking over a highway too, which made me a little nervous despite my safety from the cars below on the sturdy bridge.
I crossed 2 more onramps/offramps, each time carefully watching the incoming traffic, making a dash once the offramp/onramp lane and its adjacent lane were empty. While I trusted Texas drivers to be sane enough to stay off the shoulder lane unless in an emergency, I did not dismiss the notion that someone could quickly switch from the adjacent lane into an offramp at the last second.
With the major hazards behind me, I relaxed and continued on my way, scanning for any interesting plants I could find.
9:12 am – I gain a lifer species!
A little yellow aster flower happened to catch my eye. I came closer, and saw the finely dissected leaves with linear leaf segments. Thymophylla for sure: the genus translates to “thyme-like leaves,” refering to the resemblance of the linear leaves to those of thyme.
I checked the underside of the flower for phyllary details and was blown away by what I saw. Thymophylla tenuiloba, Bristleleaf pricklyleaf! This was a new species for me, a lifer! All that walking… worth it.
Now, with Asteraceae, the Sunflower Family, you can’t call the green underneath the flower the sepals, or the yellow membranes on top petals. Not if you’re botanically pedantic like me.
For quick reference: many flowers typically consist of petals and sepals. The petals are generally bright and are meant to attract pollinators. The sepals surround the petals and are generally green, helping to protect the flower when it is still a bud. When botanists want to refer to all the petals altogether they call it the corolla, which is convenient for flowers where are the petals are fused beyond recognition like Salvia or other mint family plants. Same thing with the sepals, except we call them collectively the calyx.
The Sunflower Family is distinct in having composite flowers, which basically means the flowers are not actually flowers, but clusters of flowers that look like one flower. A fancy way to say that is to call it a pseudanthium (from pseudo “false” and anthus “flower” – false flower!).
Each head is composed of disc flowers and ray flowers (sometimes called florets). I’m a bit lazy so let me save some time and link to some other sites for informat:
That in the middle of the bottom is the disc flower, the stuff in the middle. The two parts flanking that disc flower are ray flowers. The part which one assumes to be the petal, the long strap-like thing, is actually called a ligule.
All together they make up the composite “daisy” flower, a capitulum. Some Asteraceae plants, like mistflowers and gayfeather, are discoid – they only have disc flowers. Others, like dandelion, chicory, or wild lettuce are ligulate, with only ray flowers. But the last important thing: what about the green “sepals?”
Now this is pretty cool. The sepals for disc and ray florets in a composite flower tend to be reduced to practical invisibility… or highly modified, creating something called the pappus. You know that fluff on a dandelion flower? That’s the pappus. Yes, they’re highly modified sepals. Weird, isn’t it? Although in different Asteraceae plants the pappus can take various forms.
So then what’s that green stuff surrounding those daisy flowers? Those are bracts. Bracts are basically modified leaves. For composite flowers they get a special name, phyllaries. Phyllaries are very special because they serve as one of the most useful things to look at when identifying a composite flower. Because generally, the flowers all tend to look the same from the front. No wonder some coarser level botanists call them DYC’s—search it up if you’re curious.
It’s the phyllaries that really help to differentiate these plants. And this species which I found is an excellent example:
These two plants on the right are in the same genus, Thymophylla. The one on the left is my lifer, Thymophylla tenuiloba, Bristleleaf pricklyleaf. That one on the right, however, is Thymophylla pentachaeta, sometimes known as Parralena. The flowers are definitely similar. Maybe the flowers look a little different from here, but we’re not accounting for general variation between species. If you pull up the two species on iNaturalist and compare them by just the top of flower, you would probably be completely stumped.
Now, the phyllaries please:
Already you can see they are very different. T. tenuiloba, left, has its phyllaries fused almost all the way up the involucel (which is just a collective term for the phyllaries, like petals and corolla), with only the tops separated to form little triangular teeth. Meanwhile, those of T. pentachaeta, right, are separate for much further down.
Also, note the yellow dot things, which are glands on the phyllaries. See how the ones on T. tenuiloba are shorter, almost circular sometimes, and forming a straight line, a ring around the involucel. And then those of T. pentachaeta are longer, oblong in shape, and scattered among the phyllaries in a different way that T. tenuiloba.
Both the length of fusion of the phyllaries and the glands are in the couplet that separates these two species in Shinners and Mahler’s Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas (1999). Phyllaries are very powerful. So when identifying a composite, always be sure to check the underside as well.
There are other subtle differences in the leaves that I won’t go over, but you can check aforementioned flora for information on that.
~9:05-9:10 am – I find a larger patch of Thymophylla tenuiloba
…however, my Motorola phone decided this would be a good time to stop responding and just black out on me. I see this as a subtle “tug” saying, “enough plants mate, get going now,” but I refuse to listen. I press the power button and start up my phone again, which it did, but very reluctantly, stalling on the startup screen.
“Come on now!” I shouted at it. “I just want to take a picture of this plant!”
9:10 – 9:20 am – I impatiently wait for my phone to reboot because I want to take a picture of a plant
I refused to move on without getting a picture of this one. I mean, it was a lifer for me, and this one was a lot larger with multiple flowers and stems coming off the ground. I paced impatiently, distracting myself by looking at the plants and wildlife, occasionally making a quick glance at my phone to see if it had come to its senses yet. A recently emerged ladybug adult from its pupa kept me entertained for a while.
9:20 am – I get my photos of the second Thymophylla tenuiloba
Thank goodness. It finished. I went ahead and shot a few photos of the ladybug, and then claimed my prize:
Interestingly, the glands were not as clear on this one, and appeared to be missing or hard to see on most of the flowers. The phyllaries did not let me down though. Good phyllaries.
Progress Check, 9:20 am: About 1/3rd of the way there!
Note that my earlier expectation of arrival at 9:30 was definitely not going to pan out. Maybe the botanizing slowed me down, I don’t know. It was still worth it though, for the lifer and the adventure. My only goals now were to arrive to Hornsby Bend as soon as possible and maybe finding some more plants along the way. My pace quickened as I continued along my journey.
Between 9:30 and 9:45 am – I return to the comforts of sidewalk
A frontage road budded, grew, and branched off to meet a new crossing. I followed it along. At this crossing, there were conveniently crosswalks, stop signs, and much fewer cars. I took the opportunity to cross to the north side of the highway since Hornsby Bend was to the North and this was a pretty easy place to cross. After some more hiking along the greenery, My foot hit concrete. Civilization. Well, civilization has always been around me, but once again the world acknowledged that pedestrians existed and that they needed something nice to walk on. Encouraged by this, I quickened my pace in anticipation of my arrival to my destination. I did not see any flora of interest for quite a while.
10:09 – Perhaps the oddest find of all…
I saw it clearly near the utility pole. It was unmissable, and unmistakable. A red prickly poppy?
Allow me to give some context here. Prickly poppies, Argemone spp., are exactly what they sound like—prickly poppies. There are several species in this area, and almost all of them have white petals. There is one yellow species, Argemone mexicana (Mexican prickly poppy), that has spread upwards from Mexico, an adventive species (it’s introduced, but not fully naturalized). But… red? What? I didn’t look into prickly poppies very much since they can be rather difficult to identify, so I had no clue what species this was. I took several photos and moved on.
Meta-flash: I later learned that this plant was Argemone sanguinea, the Red prickly poppy. This species is a native of Mexico and south Texas, especially in far south Texas. They get up to San Antonio as well, though much sparser. Austin, Travis County? I could not find any records.
This could be a county record for this species. It’s rather perplexing to think about how it got here. A very intriguing find…
…of course, I was completely unaware of this in that moment. I only became fully aware of its curious circumstances after uploading to iNaturalist and speaking with some other naturalists. Let us move on.
10:13 – I find a “Williamson County winecup” in southern Travis County
At first I thought they were pure white. Once I got closer I saw the pinkish tints towards the center of each petal.
Callirhoe, the wine cups or poppymallows. Perhaps they get their name from the winecup-like shape of the corolla, or their color which is often a rich wine-red. This is Callirhoe involucrata,which goes by various common names such as Purple poppy mallow, Winecup mallow, or Wine cups. Its corolla is typically a deep wine-red color. However, there is a color variant that occurs mostly in Williamson County, sometimes dubbed the “Williamson County winecup,” which is white with a broad vertical pinkish area running through the center of the each petal, though that pinkish area can vary in intensity.
Another example with deeper pink than the one I found that day.
Thus, it is a little unusual that this plant was so far down in Travis County. I did not realize it was odd since I typically botanize around Williamson County and thus considered it a natural resident of the area.
That said, I have definitely noticed differences in floristic composition between Travis and Williamson County. While both fall under Blackland Prairie and Edwards Plateau, Travis County is closer to both subtropical South Texas and towards the Bastrop lost pines, thus getting interlopers from the South like Ruellia occidentalis and from the East like Sida rhombifolia. Williamson County is closer to the Cross Timbers and Prairies. It covers a good portion of the Limestone Cut Plains, which has similar geology to the Edwards Plateau but different topography. They share a lot of flora, but there are subtle differences.
Note: while this plant is a subspecies known as Callirhoe involucrata var. lineariloba, the subspecies is not strictly just the light morph associated with Williamson County, which is a misconception. See Ryan McDaniel’s discussion under “Varieties of C. involucrata” in A short guide to Callirhoe in Texas.
10:14-10:18 – I round the bend at FM 973 – end of highway cruising
I had walked about an hour and a half along SH 71, covering ~3.6 miles. That’s pretty fast for the typical botanistrum.
10:19 – I text Chuck Sexton asking how much longer they will be out at Hornsby Bend
I knew that Chuck had indicated we’d be hiking during the morning, but not specifically how long in the morning. He provided his number in the iNaturalist message sent so I texted him to ask:
If you’re wondering, Chuck was preparing for an afternoon social, cookout and potluck at his home, and thus left the group early. I was a bit disappointed. This was the second time I had missed getting to meet Chuck Sexton. He planned to attend the Hidden Springs Bioblitz in the fall of the year before, but dropped out last minute. I had been looking forward to meeting him today. Oh well… I was attending the Balcones Canyonlands NWR excursion the next day so we would just meet tomorrow then.
I was now within 1 mile of the Environmental Center headquarters—much closer, though not there yet. I also noted that since they were on the trails I would have to walk possibly another mile just to catch up to them. Nonetheless, I was reassured by Chuck’s text that I would be able to catch them and have a few more hours to spend at Hornsby Bend.
~10:40 – I arrive at the gate at Hornsby Bend
A car drove up to the entrance gate at Hornsby Bend. A young college student came up behind them, on foot.
The man at the gate came up and said hello.
“How did you get here?” he inquired. He asked whether I had parked my car further down the road and walked up here. “Well, I was taking the bus—long story short, I messed up somewhere and so I walked the rest of the way…”
I do not remember if he was surprised by my answer. I explained it in a rather enthusiastic and happy way, the sort-of manner which you would not expect someone walking 5 miles over 2 hours to speak in. I mean, I was in a rather good mood. It’s only natural: I tend to take things on a positive note. A scout is cheerful, after all.
Nonetheless, I showed him my ID, and he recorded some info down on his notepad, gave me a map and let me on my way. I walked another several minutes up to the pools and the public-access trails.
Part 3: The End of The Journey…
…well not really, but it turns out I have a lot more to say about the hours I spent hiking to the spot what about what happened after. I still enjoyed the rest of that day, but not as many crazy things happened for me to go over.
10:45-10:50 am – Two cars head in my direction.
The second one was a brightly-colored van that looked oddly familiar from the bioblitz I had attended last fall: wasn’t that @katethegreat’s van?
In the first one, the driver waves at me. I cannot quite recognize him, but I wave back, certain he was an iNatter, and continue on my way. I was certain that everyone else was still out on the trail. The red van passes me without any noticeable interaction.
After I passed them, I looked back for some reason and all of the sudden noticed that the brightly-colored van had stopped on the road. Now why would that be? I noticed that the driver of the first car had opened his window and was waving at me. He obviously wished for me to come over. So I walk back over to the first car.
It turns out that the driver of the car was Blake Hendon, @centratex on iNaturalist. Blake is a wildlife biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, managing the Texas Hill Country wildlife district. I met him in the afternoon at the Hidden Springs Bioblitz the fall before. He recognized me because I was wearing both my iNaturalist branded shirt and the button pin. Without those, he might’ve just passed by.
Blake let me know that in the passenger seat beside him was James Bailey himself (@silversea_starsong), and that the person in the red van was indeed Kate (@katethegreat). He told me that they had just wrapped up exploring Hornsby Bend and were headed up to another park nearby. Oh, nice. I missed it all. After hiking several hours to my destination, I would not get a chance to explore it after all. And thank goodness that Blake didn’t just pass me by, because it was just them three! Sure, I would be exploring Hornsby Bend, but I would also be searching for iNatters who, well, no longer existed in the area. And then have to go all the way back to UT Austin, though maybe not on foot the way I came.
However, Blake was kind enough to let me hitch a ride in his car to the other park they were headed to, Southeast Metropolitan Park. He also inquired about my methods of arriving here. I started to explain, but decided it was a rather long story and it would probably be better to explain in the car. I did.
11:05 am – We arrive at Southeast Metropolitan Park
According to the other iNat folk, this place is one of the best places to observe odonates: dragonflies and damselflies. If I remember correctly it has the greatest number of odonate species in Austin. Or is it? Well, let me put it this way. As of browsing iNat today (3/11), there are 114 species of research-grade odonates in Travis County. 98 of those 114 have been observed in this one park. This was why Blake took us here, because James wanted to snag some lifer odonates.
We happened across another iNatter @vsvogelaar, who was heading out of the park when we came across him. We spoke with him about some of the odonates in the area and he spoke of some things that he saw that we might be able to find. I don’t believe he was aware of Chuck’s events: we met by happenstance, as it occasionally happens among iNatters.
I enjoyed iNatting with Blake, James and Kate that day. After all, I hiked 2 hours just to be with them! That said though, this is not the main point of this blog post, it is the epilogue, so I will skip over it
~1:10 pm – Blake starts off from Southeast Metropolitan Park to take me to Dean Keeton, north side of campus
in order to avoid traffic in downtown Austin.
1:35 pm – Blake drops me off near ETC on Dean Keeton
When I leave the car, I feel a sudden itchiness all over my back. At first I was pretty certain it was the heat, but afterwards realized that my back was covered in tons of oak pollen. Well, that would do it. I took off my backpack and brushed off as much as I could find, and the irritation reduced.
2:18 pm – I remember the “golden rule” of plant hunting… and then find something unexpected.
As I was headed down to my dorm at Jester, I suddenly had an idea.
See, on Wednesday I had discovered what I believed to be a pipevine. In the middle of UT Austin campus.
I was simply walking along a path I had walked along for many weeks during my time at UT Austin, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a not-grass. The reason I believed it was a not-grass, not grass, is because it was a *dicot, and grasses are monocots.
To save me some explanation, here are the main characteristics of *dicots and monocots. In short, what tipped me off was the petioles, or leaf stalks. Grasses and other monocots often have their leaves wrapping around the stem, forming a sheath at the leaf base. They typically will not have developed petioles.
I looked at this not-grass, and within a split second thought “hey, that looks like Aristolochia erecta.” Aka a species of pipevine.
Aristolochia erecta, the Swanflower, is one of two species of pipevine native to this area of Texas. The other is Endodeca serpentaria (synonomous with Aristolochia serpentaria), or Virginia snakeroot. Both are hosts for the attractive pipevine swallowtail butterfly. Both are also difficult to find, not because they are particularly uncommon, but because their morphology can vary a lot. Often they can easily mistaken for other things.
Aristolochia erecta decided it wanted to look like grass. And it does a good job too, particularly when it is growing among the grasses and not in flower. Even in flower it is not particularly conspicuous. Such is that although it is “not uncommon” in post oak savanna, it is so easy to overlook that one might think it is rare. Camouflage and mimicry is not just an animal thing; plants also do particularly well with such things, especially since they don’t have to move very fast.
In this area the soil was bare and the grass died back, such that the plants were completely exposed to my vision and thus caught my eye. I had a 75-80% confidence that these were Aristolochia erecta,but I had never seen the plant except in pictures and so was not sure. Flowers would certainly boost that confidence level to 100%, but these plants were not in flower. I would have to wait. Or did I?
So… Saturday afternoon, walking back to Jester, I thought of the pipevines and how excited I would be if and when they flowered. Then I thought, “wait, are you sure you saw the entire population there?” There could be more plants other than the 4-5 that I saw on Wednesday. I had not surveyed the area properly, and most of the ground was elevated beyond my view by a tall concrete wall. And with finding plants, there is one thing that rings true for most plants: when you see one, there’s almost always more nearby.
I hiked down to the spot and climbed over the wall. The original plants were still there, alright, those weren’t a fever dream. I scanned the area further up. Several more plants… I knew it. Some of these ones had much broader leaves as well. I walked over to the area, careful not to trample any of them. No, at least a dozen, perhaps more. I bend down to take some pictures, walk and crouch around a bit more. Then, I look over, and come face-to-face to a fuzzy Swanflower flower:
I sat there for a second or two, just breathing, staring at the wide, gaping “pipe” open in front of me. My excitement rose and became uncontainable.
I let out laughter, modest and quiet at first, but gradually it grew louder until I was laughing aloud, unashamed of what any passerby would’ve thought of me. “YES! YESSSSSS!” These had been on my want-to-see list for a long while, and I was more than delighted by this surprise.
Oh, how wonderful it would be to watch these after spring break and for the rest of the school year, something to look forward to walking to class, watching the other plants follow their sole leader who was in bloom that day. Or maybe the pipevine swallowtails caterpillars would get to them first. That’s alright too. All I can say is that this was a wonderful finish to an extraordinary day of botanizing, and I would be thrilled to share my stories and findings when I meet Chuck and my other fellow iNatters tomorrow morning.
Epilogue
It’s Sunday. I’m out hiking at Doeskin Ranch with Chuck and some other great iNatters. We had just finished cruising/sightseeing Cow Creek Road, and I got to see some really cool plants. We reunited with Jack Cochran (@jcochran706), who had arrived to Doeskin earlier in the day, and had also caught up with Ryan McDaniel (@rymcdaniel) as well, and headed uphill to see the Amsonia cilliata and Primula meadia (syn Dodecatheon meadia). Ryan and I had met before at the Hidden Springs BioBlitz and interacted online on iNaturalist quite a lot.
We talked a bit, and I told him of my misadventures to Hornsby Bend on Saturday.
“Bought-any!” Really? Maybe if someone told me that pun in-person I would pretend to laugh on the outside, but on the inside… why. Why would you do that?
Perhaps I’m being excessively pedantic, and this really isn’t such a big deal. But it’s not just that it’s a bad pun. There are plenty of bad puns out there, there’s no doubt about that. But you see, it seems as though this one punch-line has become the textbook definition of the botany joke. And that’s a shame. Nowadays, in this sort-of pun comedy, you never get anything real creative. And as usual, the plants are especially neglected.
But I suppose I just had enough with that “botany pun.” Because by pure chance, my creative brain cogs were unusually active this one day.
See, my creative brain cogs have some rather peculiar mechanical qualities. Some days, I’ll be completely stumped, writer’s block style, usually when I least want that to happen. Other times, I bring into existence brilliant, spontaneous verses, like that exemplary verse which the soon-to-be Dr. Marshall Johnston (esteemed professor of Botany at UT Austin) produced in response to some rather odd circumstances which is an interesting tangent that you can read about here.
In any case, I came across a rather odd line, that was something along the lines of “clever.” This punny seed I have just called “clever” developed yet more in my crazy botanical mind, until it grew into a tangled masterpiece which I will handily label: “rather out-of-hand.” So, allow me to present to you this poem…
An Actually Good Botany Pun that’s not
“Bought-Any”
You know, an ecologist friend of mine once told me, “You think it’s all about plants, but
Whenever you speak of ‘botany,’ you can’t lose…
the b’s” ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo You see?
No you don’t. No, no. No u-c. If it helps, there is tea.
What? There is tea! Any tea, really. Any tea. But in any case with any tea,
the tea comes first. Why? You’ll see why at the end.
And the wonderful thing is, it works perfectly well both as a poem, or an impromptu joke… or whatever this is supposed to be.
Suffice to say, having noted the example above, there is no longer any excuse to come up with bad botany puns. And if anyone dares to say the “bought-any” pun to me… then I will happily give them a triple dose of their own medicine, using my medicine.
Sitting in the back of a SUV with 2 other DwEEBs, headed west from Austin on a chilly December afternoon, enduring long hours of driving while subsisting on my meager rations of fig bars (or waybread, as I call them). I had just finished my first semester in college at UT Austin, having nailed my Chemistry final a few days before. That was all behind me now, and I looked forward to the rugged days of freedom ahead of me, in the lands West. Our destination: the Guadalupe Mountains.
This was the first time I had been to West Texas in a long time, the last time being in 2016 as a young boy scout doing summer camp at Buffalo Trails Scout Ranch (BTSR). That was a long time before the botany bug bit me. Part of the reason I was here was to explore the flora in a new and unfamiliar ecoregion, the Trans-Pecos. I realized that no matter which season it was, practically all the plants would be new to me anyways. That was not the only reason for this trip, though. Other important goals were getting to know some of the other DwEEBs better, and of course having a bloody good time.
Me with said DwEEBs – from left to right: Abby, Arnan, Laurel. Spoiler alert: we did indeed have a “bloody good time“
But there was one reason in particular that stuck in my mind as I looked out the window into the open landscape. I was here to find a plant. A very special plant with a very special story.
More than half a century ago,
in the summer of 1946, two botanists were doing field work in the plateaus and basins of East Texas, collecting specimens for the Flora of Texas (1961) project led by Cyrus Longworth Lundell (1907-1994). Their names were Donovan S. Correll and Lloyd H. Shinners.
Lloyd Herbert Shinners (1918-1971) was an interesting character. In size he was a “midget of a man,” as his student Billie L. Turner recalled—so short that it was impossible for him to drive a car, as his legs were not long enough to reach the clutch. He had quite recently arrived in Texas from Wisconsin for the prospects of an actual interesting and worthwhile job in plant systematics, after a string of lackluster jobs in said state. He would later be recognized as a “giant of a man” in systematic botany, which I will touch on later.
Donovan Stewart Correll (1908-1983) had just been released from service in the Navy in World War II. Prior to this he had been a botanist for USDA and a research associate at the Harvard University Botanical Museum. Correll became a close friend of Shinners, and would be there at his deathbed. He would later undertake his own comprehensive work on the Flora of Texas, with Marshall C. Johnston (1930-), culminating in the monumental Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas.
Lloyd Shinners (left) and Cyrus Lundell (right), 1945
Donovan Correll
In August, the two had arrived at the Guadalupe Mountains and had spent the night at the base of the mountain range. They had by prior arrangement agreed that they would take the less difficult, better-marked trail to “The Bowl” the next day, before taking on the more difficult peaks: they had yet to have experience climbing mountains. Shinners, however, decided on his own to climb Signal Peak, now often referred to as Guadalupe Peak, the highest mountain in Texas… on his first day. He stubbornly insisted on going, even though he would be tackling the challenge alone since Correll was sticking with “The Bowl.” In a later recountment of the incident, Correll wrote:
Lloyd, unbeknownst to me, had decided to climb Signal Peak, the highest point in Texas and a mountain-climber’s challenge, on our first day. At times I can be just as stubborn as anyone, so the next morning we went our separate ways-he to climb Signal Peak, I to attain “The Bowl.“
Donovan S. Correll, 1971
Note that this was in 1946. At present, there is a somewhat rugged but well-trodden trail leading up to Guadalupe Peak, aptly named the Guadalupe Peak Trail. From Correll’s description… it appears that this trail was not created yet. So when Shinners means climbing Signal Peak, we’re talking real mountain-climbing. Talk about botanical stubbornness…
Map of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Both Signal Peak/Guadalupe Peak and The Bowl are shown and labeled.
So, on his climb up, Shinners found a peculiar Aster-like plant that was unfamiliar to him. He was reaching out to collect the plant… when, some way or another, he fell off the cliff he was standing on.
Lloyd fell some 80 feet off the northwest side of the mountain, as later estimated by Correll. He landed on a narrow ledge above the floor of a tributary of Pine Springs Canyon. And he was lucky: beyond that narrow ledge was a sheer, almost vertical 60-foot drop to the canyon floor below.
Grieviously injured with two broken arms, a broken leg, numerous cuts and scrapes, and a terrible gash across his forehead, he lay there overnight until Correll discovered his “tumbled heap of broken bones” 10 AM next morning. He had lain there for at least 15 hours; his smashed wristwatch recorded the time of his fall, 7 PM.
The story became a sort-of legend in botanical circles. In Shinners’ retelling of the story to Billie L. Turner, who was mentored by Shinners at SMU, he claimed to have fallen around 200 feet, and also gave a dramatic description of his overnight experience:
Lloyd lay there, terribly injured, for 15 hours or more, passing in and out of consciousness, sniffed by coyotes or wolves (so he said), and slithered upon by snakes. Even so, he managed to pull from his pocket with his good arm a penknife, which he opened with his teeth and thereafter clutched in his hand so as to ward off such varmints, were their encounters to become threatening.
Billie L. Turner, 1998
According to Turner’s recountment of the story, Shinners held the mystery plant the entire way of the fall. Personally, I like to believe that this was not an exaggeration.
Shinners survived, though it took several months at the hospital in Carlsbad before he recovered. Later, as he worked over the collections from that trip with his typical sense of humor, Shinners entertained the idea of naming the plant which occasioned his fall Aster humerus-fractorum.
The sources seem to vary a lot on how high he fell. 20-30 feet, 80 feet, 200 feet. I think Correll probably got it closest at 80, although even that was an estimate.
As funny as it would be… no, he did not actually name the plant that. He settled on Aster correllii Shinners, which turned out to be synonymous with Haplopappus blephariphyllus A. Gray, ultimately becoming Machaeranthera blephariphylla (A. Gray) Shinners.
I would be remiss to mention that after this trip, Shinners shifted his focus away from the mountains, as Correll notes:
From that year until his death, as far as I know, because of his inability to climb, Lloyd never botanized in hilly or mountainous terrain. He literally turned his originally keen interest in the mountains of western Texas to the prairies and plains of north and coastal Texas, and the lowlands of southeastern United States.
Donovan S. Correll, 1971
Shinners would later publish his Spring Flora of the Dallas-Fort Worth AreaTexas (1958), an important work which was “the first completed, original, technical book on Texas plants prepared by a resident of the state,” and became much of the basis for Shinners and Mahler’s Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas (1999).
Now, enough of that… back to the present (or I suppose the near past).
You see, having realized that I too was about to embark on a journey to the Guadalupe Mountains, I realized that there was a chance that I would find the plant which occasioned Shinner’s great fall. So I did what any reasonably crazy person would do… which was to do some detective work on ‘Aster humerus-fractorum‘ so I knew what to look for.
When Turner wrote his publication, the plant was named Machaeranthera blephariphylla. However, the name was changed in a reorganization of the genus Machaeranthera, and it was moved to the genus Xanthisma. So the current name it went by was Xanthisma blephariphyllum. Great. Step 1, done.
Next, to find out what the plant looked like. I looked up on iNaturalist and found… less than 10 observations, just a few research grade. One of the ones I looked at was this one confirmed by Eric M. Knight, who I knew because he wrote an amazing Texas foraging book that my scoutmaster gifted to me, and also who I briefly met at a bioblitz at Hidden Springs (yes, it’s a small world – story for later). Based on his credentials, I was certain I could trust his word. iNaturalist observations are not always accurate, although from what I could tell this was a pretty distinct plant. To be sure, I checked GBIF specimens as well.
The oblong leaves were very distinct: often, they would have a long bristle on each tooth on the margin. In fact, the species name blephariphyllum means fringed leaf, according to the always handy Dave’s Garden Botanary (thanks again Botanary!), almost certainly a reference to the bristle-tipped teeth. This interesting characteristic appeared to be unique to this species, which was good news, because the plant would not be in bloom when I arrived. To be sure, I checked the iNat profile ‘Similar Species’ tab, and the Flora of North America Xanthisma key paired with the BONAP range maps. As far as I could tell, there was no mistaking this for anything else.
The last thing I did was check the iNat observation locations to ‘geocache’ the location. This is something I love to do with plants, where you find a record of a species and then track it down. Generally, plants don’t move—even annuals should reseed in the same area, because otherwise they wouldn’t have grown there in the first place! From the map, it looked like most of the plants were in Pine Springs Canyon, along the Devil’s Hall trail, so there was a pretty good chance I would find my target there. Now, I just had to keep my eyes peeled.
Turns out, I didn’t actually find the plant along Devil’s Hall, but serendipitously along the trail up Guadalupe Peak. I was walking up along the trail, at the back (because unfortunately most of my other wonderful companions weren’t dedicated botany people 😎 [and also maybe because we didn’t have a lot of daytime and if we went my speed it’d take 1-2 days up and down lol]). Suddenly, I noticed up ahead, on the rocky outcrops the the right of the trail: leaves with bristle tipped teeth.
Oh, I was absolutely thrilled to find this species, even ragged and brown as it was. The others probably couldn’t tell, because I generally keep my outside reactions toned down when I’m with other people. Make no mistake though: If I found this plant while I was hiking alone, I would’ve shouted “YES!!!” in a really loud voice, and then laugh maniacally for at least a minute, and also shout at it in excitement. Yes, this is how I react to plants. Yes, I’m probably a little crazy. But come on now, can’t one have a little fun these days?
We then fortunately stopped to take a quick break and several plants were nearby, so I got plenty of good photos for my observation. To me, this represented a fulfilling of prophercy, following in the footsteps of one of the great Texas botanists. And to celebrate, off a cliff too… I’m joking! No worries: while I found the plant, I did not share Shinner’s fate on my Guadalupe Mountains trip 😉
Note that my sister was disappointed that I did not fall off the mountain too, as it would’ve made a better story. To be honest… I was considering it? Just a small fall. It would’ve be funny! Maybe I missed an opportunity there… maybe not. You’d be surprised how many times people told me not to fall off a cliff before this trip (I counted 3).
Lastly, I would like to speak of Shinners again. I first looked into Shinners when I was scrolling through the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) Press website, looking at their books. They published a biography on him, which caught my attention since I knew his name from the Flora of North Central Texas which bore his name (and his successor Bill Mahler… but that’s a tangent for another day). What intrigued me was the About the Book section. Within those ‘hinting’ words was something about Lloyd Herbert Shinners reminded me very much of myself, and I instantly felt a connection to his story. I have currently borrowed this book from UT Libraries and am reading it over winter break.
Perhaps I can help continue his legacy… in fact, I’m already doing so, by sharing his story with the rest of you. So thank you, whoever you may be, for reading this post, and for helping the story of Lloyd H. Shinners live on.
…
I used to twit him with the question, ” Why, Lloyd? Why put so much effort, time, and money into a systematic enterprise that is certain to collapse with your demise?” His response was always the same, a resigned look, with the comment, “That might well be, but I believe in what I’m about … anyway, if it’s meaningful, others of a similar bent will take up my cause.”
Diggs, G.M., Lipscomb, B.L., O’Kennon, R.J., Mahler, W.F. and Shinners, L.H., 1999. Shinners and Mahler’s Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas. Botanical Research Institute of Texas, Fort Worth.
Ginsburg, R. 2002. Lloyd Herbert Shinners: By Himself. Botanical Research Institute of Texas, Forth Worth. 58-62 pp.
In Spring ’22 I spent the semester in Washington D.C. as an Archer fellow and an intern at the Smithsonian National Zoo. I have previous animal care experience from my internship at the Austin Wildlife Rescue and a few other volunteer opportunities. I am a big fan of large carnivores and mammals of all sorts. Before this internship my main interests was tiger conservation, bear management, and orca social behaviors.
How did you get this opportunity?
I applied to the Archer Fellowship Program because I thought I wanted to be an Environmental Lawyer. I got accepted and when I began applying to internships, I realized that the only thing I want to do is work with animals. So, I applied to every internship at the Smithsonian National Zoo. I was accepted as a Primate Intern and I was able to make an exception with the internship policy requirements with Archer. I spent the spring semester in D.C. with a cohort of 50 people from the University of Texas system. For transportation I used a combination of walking and the train to my internship. In addition to the 30 hr/week internship, I was also taking a few courses. For the fellowship, we were required to take a policy making course, internship course, and a politics of national memory. We had assignments, projects, trips to national monuments, and political simulations. The majority of students were pursuing careers in policy. I was the first Archer Fellow to ever work at the zoo!
What was a typical day-in-the-life like at your internship?
I arrived at the zoo at 7 am and began preparing the diets for the primates. The orangutans and gorillas had to get their veggies baked every day for enrichment. We had to season the veggies and our oldest orangutan Lucy loved paprika and spicy seasonings. Each exhibit got 3 different types of enrichment every day such as balls filled with cut veggies, paper bags with pumpkin, or a fishing set up with a barrel and oatmeal (if you would like to see this set up I can show you on my phone but I am not allowed to post the behind the scenes photos). We would prepare enrichment the day before as well because some of them are time consuming to make. We also were assigned a different exhibit to clean every morning, such as the lemurs and siamangs, swamp monkeys, gorillas or orangutans. My favorite was the orangutan side because they are the most interactive and will try to help you clean. My bestie Bonnie would also try to steal my trash bags and buckets with a long bamboo stick. I usually had 2-3 observations to complete a day where I watched two brown collared lemurs use their enrichment. On good weather days, the orangutans were let outside where they had to be watched because they had the option to traveling to another building by using ropes about 100 feet in the air. The interns and volunteers took turns watching them and asking guest to no stand underneath as they crossed. We ended the day with miscellaneous cleaning tasks and the gorilla feeding. The PM diet for the gorillas are station fed so the keepers would allow the interns to go back and watch the feed and train. I was very motivated to be able to identify each animal and I was successfully able to do so after the first two weeks.
Did you conduct any research?
I performed an enrichment evaluation on two brown collared lemurs. I analyzed their sensory behaviors, stress behaviors, and their interactions with each other. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if they were being stimulated enough. Bentley and Beamer came from a facility were they were previously housed with their parents and siblings and didn’t have access outside. The lemur exhibit is a mixed species exhibit with the collared lemurs, ring-tailed lemurs, and black and white lemurs. The Black and white lemurs are larger than the rest and have not cooperated with the new collared lemurs yet. Since being at the zoo they have not been able to spend time outside because of the black and white lemurs and the unfamiliar noises. Therefore it is crucial that their enrichment is stimulating enough for the pair. I presented my findings to the primate staff, and I made a few suggestions to increase their stimulation.
One interesting thing I found was the more dominant brother appeared to be the lemur that was the most timid toward the animal care staff. I also found that they will do anything for bananas and can find a hidden slice in their enclosure within 3 minutes of entry.
How were the animals?
The orangutans and gorillas were very intimidating at first because they KNOW you are someone new and they know you aren’t equal to the other keepers. My first day I got spit on by Lucy, our oldest orangutan. That was not the last time either, I was also spit on by Bonnie because I shut a door too loudly.
Baraka, our silverback gorilla, was so calm and he tolerated Moke, his 5 year old son, very well. Even when he would throw feces, hay, and extra food at him. The gorillas had the most obvious hierarchy and the interactions between individuals varied.
I was able to get experience training every lemur, but I mainly interacted with the brown collared lemurs. I got to train Bentley on how to climb and helped strengthen his skills for other training tasks. I spent the most time at this exhibit and I got very familiar with their alarm calls and stress behaviors.
Lastly, the zoo recently acquired a new pair of siamangs when I arrived. The Smithsonian National Zoo is one of the first zoos to house two pairs of siamangs in one exhibit. Siamangs are very territorial and it was interesting to see how the new pair affected the behaviors of the older pair. The siamangs also interacted with enrichment differently compared to the rest of the primates due to their physiology. The oldest female also learned how to open caps which was very impressive to watch.
What are some particularly memorable moments from your internship?
We had a birthday party for some of the gorillas. It was a board game theme and we put apple sauce and peanut butter on the pieces to get them to interact with them. We also had a tea party for a pair of the orangutans, Kiko and Iris. I made them both crowns and they unfortunately did not wear it. Lastly, my favorite orangutan Bonnie loves O-line and to watch people. One time during the internship she refused to move off the platform and was swinging her little legs and staring down at everyone. In order to get her inside, one of the keepers had to bait her with a banana.
Do you have the Primatology Minor?
No I do not. I have always been interested in animal welfare and animal behavior but I never looked into specifically primatology. After my internship, I have now decided to go to grad school in the future for primatology.
What were the main goals of your internship?
The main goals of my internship was to train one skill to my assigned lemur, complete and present an enrichment evaluation, and to learn professional skills to use in the future. I got to train Bentley, one of the collared lemurs, on how to climb and helped strengthen his skills for other training tasks. I was able to accomplish my goals as well as shadow the elephant zookeepers and the American Trail keepers. My assigned keeper mentor ended up being the Intern Coordinator so I was able to learn interview techniques as well as who to network in the animal care world.
Another goal I had was to learn more about zoos in general and their ethical practices. My internship experience completely shifted or maybe just opened up my mind to how zoos are run. AZA accredited zoos are held to a good standard and there is a new program as of 2022 to implement assessments of animal welfare to ensure that zoos are giving each animal the best enclosure and program they can. I would NOT recommend going to any non-AZA accredited zoos (Austin Zoo and Aquarium are non-AZA). I also found that there is more research going on in zoos than I expected. While interning at the zoo, I met an Animal Welfare scientist who conducted a study at the zoo with the pandas where they were able to successfully impregnate a female panda on behavior alone which has never been done before!
At the end of my semester, I voluntarily gave a primate talk to my peers about the animals I worked with and everything I learned throughout my internship. It was a rewarding experience, and I recommend the program for anyone interested in animal care and behavior. I would love to talk more about my experience or share some photos so don’t hesitate to ask!
It was a dark and stormy night at Mountain Lake Biological Station in southwest Virginia, and my classmates and I were crouched over a patch of moss looking desperately at a small salamander. Out for a nighttime stroll in the rain, he had no idea his appearance was giving a group of amateur herpetologists anxiety. “Yeah, that head looks froggy to me.”
“Definitely a Desmognathus. Or wait…”
“Is the tail laterally compressed?”
“I think it’s P. cinereus.”
“Did anyone flip it over to look at the underside?”
I knew it was in the Desmognathus genus by its head, and the tail looked flattened to me. I turned to our TA, who was waiting on our ID. “Is it D. fuscus?” He smiled.
“Nope! D. ochrophaeus. That tail is rounded.” We all groan. This is probably the twentieth Desmognathus ochrophaeus we’ve seen in the past half hour, and we still can’t recognize them reliably. We stand up, scribble in our field notebooks, and start creeping our way to the next sighting. Among the local salamanders we learned to identify in our field herpetology class at MLBS, those in the genus Desmognathus were the most difficult by far. Also known as the dusky salamanders, they’re found in and around rocky streams from east Texas all the way up to Canada, where they’ve split into many species. Exactly how many? That’s a question still being answered. The more I learn about them and the taxonomic shuffle they’re undergoing, the more interested in them I become.
Two different-looking D. ochrophaeus trying their best to confuse us. Photo: Becky Williams
While we puzzled over D. fuscus and D. ochrophaeus – two species that are most definitely distinct, no matter what my field notes say – there were others at the field station tackling much harder distinctions. As it turns out, the Desmognathus genus is full of ecomorphs, or populations that have evolved slight differences that help them in the specific habitat they specialize in. In a group of salamanders within a certain ecosystem, some might become more aquatic with a compressed tail that helps them swim, some might spend their time among leaf litter and develop a pattern that helps them blend in, and all of them might change sizes to take advantage of the food they eat; eventually, these different groups can isolate from each other and become distinct species. This spells trouble for biologists trying to figure out who’s who: depending on where you are, the “mountain dusky salamander” ecomorph that has developed a black belly, relatively large size, and tendency towards stream bottoms could be several different species that aren’t each other’s closest relatives.
Thankfully, our field herpetology professor never expected us to tell the difference between these different Desmognathus ecomorphs. But whenever we did have questions we knew exactly who to ask, since we were sharing the field station with Dr. David Beamer, one of the researchers puzzling out the evolution of all these tricky look-alikes. I got to attend a talk of his about how he and his colleagues went about identifying the different Desmognathus species. Their most helpful tool is DNA sequencing, which is cheaper and more accurate than ever before and can tell researchers which populations of salamanders are more closely related based on how similar their DNA is. But with so many salamanders from so many different places across the region, how did they know where to center their analyses? The answer required them to imagine how the Desmognathus salamanders split from one another in the first place.
Desmognathus orestes, an ecomorph of D. ochrophaeus. If we weren’t in a different part of the state when we found this guy, we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Photo: Kyle Moxley
One of the reasons there’s so many ecomorphs of Desmognathus is likely because of how little these salamanders move around. They’re small, they’re slow, they need moisture, and they make tasty food for a number of animals, meaning one big hill or rocky outcrop can easily form a huge and unnecessary barrier to their activity. This makes them susceptible to getting separated from each other pretty quickly, which leads to genetic isolation and eventually different species. Once you understand what features of the environment might make salamander movement easier or harder, it’s a lot easier to imagine where the closely related groups might end up. That’s why Dr. Beamer and his colleagues focused their analyses of Desmognathus salamanders around separate river drainages and areas of uninterrupted habitat that might be isolating groups of salamanders from each other. Instead of thinking about the features of the salamander that seemed similar, they thought about the features of the environment that might cause a group to get cut off from others and form its own ecomorphs. The result was an increased understanding of which related groups of salamanders exist where, an enormous aid in identifying which species are distinct. New species descriptions are following rapidly.
Why do I care so much about the taxonomy of these little salamanders? As someone who struggled to tell the difference between some of the most different Desmognathus species, I have a great appreciation for the research going into much more subtle variations within the genus. There are many practical advantages to understanding an organism’s taxonomy — to protect salamanders in an increasingly polluted and habitat-sparse world, it’s important to know which groups within Desmognathus are the same and which groups hold hidden diversity in danger of disappearing. For me, these taxonomic complications are a reminder of the incalculable diversity nature holds and its infinite potential for discovery. As long as we are looking, there will be more to see. Especially among dusky salamanders.
Thanks to David Beamer, my professor Christian Cox, my TA Albert Chung, and all my classmates for helping me through my first experience in field herpetology this past summer. 30 herp points to all of you!
Selenopids. Ever hear of them? Probably not. I had never heard of them until spring 2021, when I was applying for my REU at California Academy of Sciences. I worked there for 9 weeks and I’m still working on my project I started there, so let me tell you about these funky little guys.
Selenopidae is a family of spiders consisting of 9 genera and roughly 200 species. A selenopid is a spider (or species of spider) that belongs to the family Selenopidae. Selenops is the largest genus of selenopids and members of this genus are found worldwide. Some of their common names include: flatties, wall crab spiders, and wall spiders. Like one of their common names suggests, they are flat!
Selenops sp., iNat – Sarah Crews (screws)
They are found in tropical and subtropical regions around the world, and the species that occur in the United States are found in the deserts of southwestern North America in Utah, Arizona, West Texas, Baja California, and Northwest Mexico.
One of my favorite facts about them is that they don’t build webs, and instead they catch their prey and need to be fast. Because of this, they’ve evolved the fastest turning strike in the animal kingdom. In fractions of a second, they detect movement of prey behind them, rotate themselves by pivoting on 3 of their 8 feet, and strike. Their prey have no time to process what hit them!
The Selenops debilis group is one species group of selenopids. There are 8 nominal species in this group, and I am looking at 3 of these that occur in the North American desert southwest region: S. debilis, S. nesophilus, and S. actophilus.
A member of the S. debilis group, found by me at Independence Creek Preserve, Pecos Co., TX
Most arthropods are differentiated by their genitalia, and selenopids are no exception. But, there’s a big problem. There’s A LOT of variation between individuals of one species, making it nearly impossible to actually differentiate S. debilis group spiders by morphology alone.
Type specimens are specimens of a species that represent that species, and the female and male type specimens of S. debilis were found in San Jose del Cabo, Baja California and described by Banks in 1898. Later, the S. nesophilus type specimens were collected from the same place and S. actophilus types were collected from very nearby locations.
The type specimens’ genitalia for S. debilis, S. actophilus, and S. nesophilus look like this:
Highlighted in blue on the top row is the RTF. On the bottom row, the brown pairs of bunny-ear looking shapes are the spermathecae. The brown base beneath the spermathecae is the PDF.
Holotypes are the most formal type specimens and are the individuals originally based upon the species was named, and when Muma revised the S. debilis group in 1953, the male holotype was lost, so Muma designated a neotype (a specimen chosen to be the holotype when the holotype is destroyed or missing) from Arizona based on form and coloration. BAD BAD MUMA – This neotype was found hundreds of miles away from the original type locality and within range of another species! This problem combined with the genitalic variation made things even more complicated for understanding species differentiation!
Map of specimen localities, including type specimens.
Blah blah blah ok so now you must be thinking, I read spider genitalia in the title, when is he ACTUALLY gonna talk about spider genitalia? Now. Now I’m gonna talk about spider genitalia.
You might have heard of pedipalps (shortened to “palps”), the “limbs” near the mouth of the spider used to taste and smell. Well in sexually mature males, the palps have an extra structure on the end of the tarsus (the last segment of the palp furthest away from the body), known as the palpal bulb. This palpal bulb is responsible for transferring semen, and the structures making up this vary in size and shape, making up the genitalic variation I’ve mentioned.
Diagram of palpal bulb on male pedipalps (Dippenaar-Schoeman & Joqué, 1997)
Selenopidae is a part of a clade of spiders known as the RTA clade, which consists of nearly half of all known spider species and 39 total families, including wolf spiders, jumping spiders, and crab spiders. The main synapomorphy of this clade is the presence of the retrolateral tibial apophysis (RTA) on the tibia of the pedipalp. RTA shapes are very diverse and there are many overlapping characteristics and “morphs” in the S. debilis group. A consistent difference in the RTA is the dorsal section, and specifically this point at the edge of the RTA varies in shape a lot.
RTA variationDiagram of generalized female spider (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2012)
In female genitalia, there is even more variation than in males. Their reproductive organs are located around the middle on the underside of their abdomen (not anywhere near the spinnerets or pedipalp! They differ in the spermatheca, the posterodorsal fold (PDF), and externally. Their spermathecae are all different proportions and some are twisted. Their PDFs are sometimes curved differently at the outer edges.
Female genitalic variation
Because there are so many different shapes within and between species, my advisor Sarah Crews is trying to group them in little morphs to help us group genitalia shapes in our specimens. We’re still working on if this has anything to do with their geography but this is very hard to do and everything is still very fuzzy.
Join us on Tuesday, November 8th at 6:30pm to hear from our guest speaker Lauren Esposito, the Curator of Arachnology at the California Academy of Sciences!
References 🙂
Crews, SC (2011) A revision of the spider genus Selenops Latreille, 1819 (Arachnida, Araneae, Selenopidae) in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. ZooKeys 105: 1–182. doi:10.3897/zookeys.105.724
Over the summer, I was a Field Research Intern at the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, North Carolina! The Duke Lemur Center houses around 200 lemurs and is a center for minimally-invasive lemur research.
Did you know lemurs are the most endangered group of mammals in the world? Lemurs are also an incredibly diverse group of mammals. Some can hibernate, some are nocturnal, some are insectivores, some are frugivores, some are the size of a smallish dog, and others are the size of a mouse! And, lemurs are primates just like us, so there is a lot of interesting research that can be done with lemurs.
Collecting behavior observations from two Coquerel’s sifakas (Propithecus Coquereli)
How did you get this opportunity?
I initially found out about this internship over Instagram. I had heard a lot of good things about the Duke Lemur Center and its internship program, so I was waiting for them to announce that the applications had opened! There were over 100 applicants for 20 internship positions, split into husbandry, animal welfare, fossils, communications, and field research. I had to fill out an application with some short-answer essays about why I was interested in the internship, had to provide 2 recommendation letters, and then was asked to do an interview over Zoom. I then got an email that I was offered an internship position!
Did your internship provide any sort of compensation?
The internship did not provide housing and was unpaid with no stipend. They were able to pay 5 of the 20 interns, and those interns got paid $15 an hour and had to work at least 30 hours a week. I applied for a paid position and had to submit my FAFSA information and a statement of financial need, but I ended up not being offered a paid position. The Duke Lemur Center is trying to get the funding to eventually be able to pay all the interns and provide on-site housing for all of them, so hopefully in the future that will be an option!
When did your internship take place?
The internship was 10 weeks long. It started in the last week of May and ended in the first week of August. I was required to work at least 20 hours a week, but ended up working 30 hours a week.
What were the main goals of your internship?
The main goals of my internship were to learn more about lemurs, animal behavior research methods, and to create my own research project! My project was about handedness in lemurs. I wanted to find out whether the lemurs were right or left-handed, and if certain factors (like species, sex, and individual) affected whether the lemurs were righties or lefties.
What was a typical day-in-the-life like at your internship?
I would usually get to the lemur center at around 7:30am. Then, I had to change into my Lemur Uniform (green intern shirt, long pants, and sneakers that were kept at the lemur center to prevent the spread of disease), get my keys and a walkie-talkie radio, apply copious amounts of sunscreen and bug spray, and would go into the research building. I would then write down which lemur enclosures I was going to, and what times I would be there. Then I could head over to the lemur enclosures! Many of the lemurs at the Duke Lemur Center live in giant fenced-in areas called “Natural Habitat Enclosures”. I was able to go inside the enclosures in order to observe the lemurs for my research project (I was not allowed to interact or touch the lemurs of course!). I would usually collect around 4 hours of behavior observations per day. At around 11ish, the field research interns would eat lunch in the research building together, and then we would either go back to observe lemurs, or sit together in the conference room to work on data entry. Our data was all hand-recorded on clipboards, so entering data could be very time-consuming, but it was a helpful way to reflect back on the data. On Tuesdays, we went to a COVID-19 testing center to get a PCR test (on top of that, we also were all required to be fully vaccinated and boosted, and to wear a mask when in buildings that housed lemurs, and when within 6 feet of the lemurs). We would also spend the day getting to observe veterinary procedures, observe other research projects being done (such as people doing memory games with the lemurs to learn about their cognition), and go to talks from other people at the lemur center, like the veterinarian, communications department, and conservation department. I would usually go home at around 2pm. Some days I would stay later though, until around 5:30. The nice thing about the internship is that it was overall really flexible, since I was conducting my own research project.
What are some particularly memorable moments from your internship?
We got to do a night hike where we arrived at the lemur center at around 9pm, and stayed until around 11. We practiced using radio telemetry equipment to track the lemurs, but the radio actually stopped working, so we had to look for them in the dark with just our ears and our flashlights. We got to see the aye-ayes (a nocturnal species of lemur) out at night, which was really cool! Before I had only been able to see the aye-ayes during the day, when they lived in their indoor enclosures.
Sometimes I went to see the lemurs at around 5:30 am to collect more observations. It was really nice to be in the Natural Habitat Enclosures with no noises of human activity at all, just lemurs.
We got to watch different veterinary procedures. The research building came with a state-of-the-art veterinary facility, complete with glass walls so we could walk by and observe vet procedures whenever we wanted. The lemurs get check-ups just like humans do!
At the end of the internship, all the interns presented our research projects at the Intern Symposium. I made a wiki page about my research project here. This was my first time conducting my own research, so I have a lot to learn!
Using radio telemetry equipment to locate lemurs during a night hike!
Blue-eyed lemurs (Eulemur flavifrons) in a Natural Habitat Enclosure. There are thought to be less than 1,000 of these left in the wild.
Some of our officers and members aren’t even EEB majors! This is a diverse field and many other majors overlap. The main ones being environmental science, geology, sustainability studies, psychology, and more!
2. Don’t let intro classes and core requirements (we’re looking at you, physics) get you down
Our least favorite classes have been Physics, Introductory Biology, Spanish, Government, and U.S. History.
3. Look forward to fun EEB classes!
Our favorites are Biology Field Lab, Entomology, Bio of Birds, Methods in Primate Biology, and Field Herpetology.
4. College is more than just classes
Join clubs and organizations! Apply to internships! Volunteer! There are so many opportunities on such a big campus, don’t be afraid to reach out to professors about research or show up to a new organization.
5. Find the cool study spots
Most buildings on campus are open for you to explore. The engineering building (EER) has really nice chairs!
6. You don’t have to have your life (or your major or career) all figured out
Don’t be afraid to consider different career paths and majors. The one you picked when you applied might not be the best fit for you, or the career you thought you always wanted might not be what it was cracked up to be. Nobody actually has their life figured out, and even if they do it honestly doesn’t concern you. Just mind your business and try out a bunch of stuff to see what sticks.
7. We can help you!
Shameless plug…. But! The EEB Club can help you find job, research, and volunteer opportunities. Our Resource Drive has degree plan advice, resume and cover letter templates, and lots of other cool stuff. We also do fun things to build community like painting, hiking, picnics, and more!
8. Take advantage of FREE campus resources!
Get your money’s worth on all that tuition. The Austin Metro buses are all free with your UT ID, as is the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the Blanton Museum. Try out Peer Academic Coaching to help with organization, time management and study techniques. Also check out the Counseling and Mental Health Center. (:
Texas EEB Club 