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| Windflower, typical white form |
February is a time of change in Central Texas, with temperatures often ranging from the 30s to the 70s, and it is precisely these large swings in temperature that create challenges for local wildlife. Finding food is essential, and the little things like insects that emerge in early spring rely heavily on the early bloomers in our native landscape.
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| Elbowbush |
Elbowbush (Forestiera pubescens), also commonly called Stretchberry or Spring Herald, is a multi-branched deciduous shrub with smooth gray bark, long arched branches, and light green leaves. It is most conspicuous, though, in late January and early February, when small, yellow-green, petal-less flowers begin to burst in small clusters on the bare twigs. Common in open woodlands, brushy areas, and near streams, its early flowering period provides nectar for native bees and spring butterflies, namely Gray, Juniper, and Great Purple Hairstreaks. Elbowbush gets its common name from branches that typically form in right angles to one another, reminiscent of a bent elbow. It produces a quarter-inch, fleshy, dark blue fruit often devoured by wildlife in the summer, and its leaves turn a unique chartreuse color in the fall. Additionally, Elbowbush is one of the larval food plants for the Incense Cedar Sphinx (Sphinx libocedrus).
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| Two-flowered Anemone, exhibiting side stem |
Poking their colorful blooms above the drab winter landscape are two species in the Buttercup Family, Two-flowered Anemone (Anemone edwardsiana) and Windflower (Anemone berlandieri). While both of these plants bloom from February to April, Two-flowered Anemone is an uncommon plant that is also called the Edwards Plateau Thimbleweed, since it grows only in this region of Central Texas. Windflower is common and has a more widespread range, and is often called Southern Anemone or Tenpetal Anemone (even though it can have 10 to 20 petal-like sepals).
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| Two-flowered Anemone, deep blue form |
Two-flowered Anemone grows 6 to 12 inches tall, and is most often found on the moist banks of shaded canyons. Midway or further up the stem are three bracts, with side stems growing from those bracts, and each side stem can produce 1 to 3 flowers, with only 1 flower on the main stem. In reality, most plants carry only 2 or 3 flowers in total, each 0.5 to 1.25 inches wide and typically white, but can exhibit pink, lavender, light blue, or deep blue. In comparison, Windflower grows 6 to 15 inches tall, with low-lying leaves that are divided into three segments and are often reddish-purple on the underside. Its single stem carries only 1 flower, 0.75 to 1.5 inches wide, and it can exhibit the same range of colors as the Two-flowered Anemone.
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| Windflower, pink form |
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| Windflower, light blue form |
Found on the moist soils in shaded canyons in the southern half of the Hill Country, Golden Groundsel (Packera obovate) is a rosette-forming perennial that blooms from February to April. Slender flowering stems rise up to 18 inches above the basal rosette of oval leaves, topped with yellow flower clusters few to many-headed, with each flower 0.5 to 0.75 inches wide. Once established, this plant colonizes quickly, and can create an early-blooming, evergreen ground cover in shady, woodland areas.
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| Golden Groundsel |
Why not plant some these early bloomers in your landscape, as they not only provide early nectar for bees and butterflies, but they are also heralds of our coming spring!
