Firewheel
(also known as Indian Blanket or Gaillardia)
photos taken 17 March 2014, Austin, Texas






Wildflowers are plants that live in one's part of the world in untended land without needing cultivation or fussing over. They are the natives.

The beauty of wildflowers is that they have adapted over many generations to the climate and soil in their local area. In other words, they tend to be robust. I understand that many wildflowers have developed a sort of insurance to survive even after the toughest seasons. Their seeds are like little timers. Some will germinate during the first year after they fall to the ground, so that new flowers show up during the next blooming season. But some will remain as seeds, will not germinate, for another year or two or three, until their timers go off. So, if one year's crop of wildflowers does not make it to the flowering stage because of extreme heat or because of flooding, there are still seeds on hold, waiting to germinate the next year. There is still hope.

Some local insects and birds have a close relationship to specific native flowers. For example, in central Texas where I live, monarch butterflies lay eggs on the milkweed variety known as Antelope Horn. The caterpillars hatch there, feed on the leaves, and go into metamorphosis (the change from caterpillar to butterfly) all on the same plant. The chrysalis dangles beneath the leaves until the butterfly is ready to emerge, full grown, only minutes away from first flight.