Flower Texas Wild

Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary has issued a call for applications to serve on the newly formed Sanctuary Advisory Council. Applications are due by August 15, 2005 . You may download the following pdf files and submit your completed application to: ... [Read More]

PCA Alien Plant Working Group - Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea biebersteinii)
Flowers are purple to pink, rarely white, with 25 to 35 flowers per head. Plants bloom from June to October, and flower heads usually remain on the plant. Flower heads are oblong or oval shaped, ¼ inch wide and ½ inch across, and are single or borne in clusters of two or three at the branch ends. Leaf like bracts surrounding the base of the flower head are oval and yellow green, becoming brown near the base. The margins of these bracts have a soft spine like fringe, with the center spine being shorter than the lateral spines. The brown, oval seeds are 1/16 to 1/8 inch long, with pale longitudinal lines and a short fringe on one end. ... [Read More]

PCA Alien Plant Working Group - Saltcedar (Tamarix aphylla; chinensis; gallica; parviflora; ramosissima)
ECOLOGICAL THREAT: Saltcedars are fire-adapted species and have long tap roots that allow them to intercept deep water tables and interfere with natural aquatic systems. Saltcedar disrupts the structure and stability of native plant communities and degrades native wildlife habitat by outcompeting and replacing native plant species, monopolizing limited sources of moisture, and increasing the frequency, intensity and effect of fires and floods. Although it provides some shelter, the foliage and flowers of saltcedar provide little food value for native wildlife species that depend on nutrient-rich native plant resources. ... [Read More]

Rosa arkansana (Prairie Wild Rose)
Prairie wild rose often appears herbaceous, but actually is a smallshrub. Plants spring from stout horizontal roots and usually are lessthan a foot tall in our area, dying back to the ground each winter.However, some plants persist as obvious shrubs up to three feet tall.Stems are beset with reddish prickles. The alternate leaves are odd-pinnate with 7-11 leaflets toothed on the upper half. The five-petalled flowers are about two inches wide, and vary from pink towhite or rarely deep rose. Three or more flowers are borne on new-growth branches that are unarmed with prickles. Fruits consist of aswollen body (hip) that contains numerous bony achenes in a fleshymatrix. Seeds inside the achenes have thin coats. Many varieties andhybrids of prairie wild rose have been described. ... [Read More]

Celebrating Wildflowers Coloring Book Page
Learning to love and appreciate nature can start at any age.  You can Celebrate Wildflowers in your own home by using the Plant Conservation Alliance's Coloring Books for the Northwest and Texas Hill Country.  Each Coloring Book also has an educational section discussing various topics dealing with plants.  The On-Line Gallery gives kids an opportunity to send in their coloring for display on the web. ...

Plant Conservation Alliance Website | Celebrating Wildflowers Website ... [Read More]

Wild Four-O'Clock (Mirabilis nyctaginea)
Wild four-o'clock is a hairless perennial 2-3 feet tall. Roots are thick andblack. Pairs of heart-shaped leaves are widely separated along the thin stems. About a dozen pink, funnel-shaped flowers form open clusters at the top of theplant. The part that gives color to the flowers of most plants (the corolla) isoddly absent in the four-o'clocks. Instead, it is the normally green flower cup(the calyx) that is colored. The 5-ribbed fruits are about 3/16 inch long. ...

This species is a member of the four-o'clock family (Nyctaginaceae) which hasabout 300 species found mostly in the American tropics. The family and speciesnames are from the Greek nyct , pertaining to "night." Mirabilis is from theLatin for "wonderful." Wild four-o'clock was discovered by the eminent Frenchbotanist Andre Michaux (1746-1802). In 1792, Michaux was unsuccessfully nominatedby Thomas Jefferson to accompany Meriwether Lewis on a proposed expedition toexplore the wilderness that lay west of the Mississippi River. ... [Read More]

Rio Grande Botanic Garden | Plants in Bloom
Paper flower (Psilostrophe tagentea) ...

Wild cotton (Gossypium harknessii) ...

Trumpet flower (Tecomeria ‘Orange Jubilee’) ... [Read More]

Pink Wild Onion (Allium stellatum)
Pink wild onion is a perennial or biennial plant up to two feet tall, but mostNorth Dakota specimens are only about 12-18 inches tall. Plants have two to sixleaves; these are narrow and about 2/3 the length of the main flower stalk. About 15-20 small pink flowers with tiny pedicels about 1/2 inch long form aflower head about one to two inches wide at the top of the stalk. One or twoslightly elongated bulbs with membranous coverings lie below ground. ...

The wild onions are members of the lily family (Liliaceae) which contains about3,800 species distributed throughout the world except for arctic and antarcticregions. In addition to the onions, the family contains the garlics, chives, andleeks. There are about 500 species of Allium ; all are found in the northernhemisphere. A few are said to be poisonous to livestock. Allium is the ancientLatin name of garlic. Stellatum means "starry" in botanical Latin, in referenceto the arrangement of the flower petals. Pink wild onion was first described forscience in the early 1800's by John Bellenden Ker (1764-1842), first editor of Edward's ... [Read More]

State Tree and Flower
Maine designated the white pine cone and tassel as its state flower. Botanically, these are not considered flowers since gymnosperms do not have true flowers. The reproductive structures of pines are known as strobili. You could accurately state the Maine is the only state to have an official state strobilae. If you thought Oklahoma was the right answer, you are nearly correct. Mistletoe is a plant and is not a flower. It is, however, a flowering plant and bears true flowers, even though they are not showy. ... [Read More]

Texas
The Republic of Texas achieved its independence from Mexico in 1836, the same year as the famous siege of the Alamo in which pioneers Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett were slain. The "Lone Star State" was the 28th state to join the Union, admitted in 1845. The name Texas is a Spanish name, which comes from an Indian word meaning "friends" or "allies." Texas is the second-largest state in the Union in area, after Alaska. Although it has a wild, frontier history, today Texas is a major producer of oil and has important centers of industry and finance. A Texas state historian has said that the state flower, the bluebonnet, "is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland." ... [Read More]