Enchanted Rock
Fresh off our wildflower extravaganza in Bandera County, Karen and I rested a day then struck off again for Llano County and Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. Sensing that pleasant days afield would be becoming scarce soon, there was urgency to experience one more great day in this fantastic wildflower year. Our plan: hike the Loop Trail in search of wildflowers. We found something new, something rare, and something that shouldn’t even be there.
We decided to hike the trail counter-clockwise to see more bird activity along Sandy Creek in the morning. We had the trail well begun when we ran into a group of 80 or so middle school students from San Antonio. A tricky water crossing was just in front of us so we stepped off the trail to let the students make the crossing first. A backpacker had slipped on the rocks in the crossing and cut his hand badly. The school chaperones were tending to him as the students filed by him and then us. One student gave us the quote of the day as he went by us. He said, “Nature is scary.”
We made the crossing without incident and reached the beginning of the climb up Turkey Pass. The morning clouds had vanished and the sun blazed down on us. Humidity wrapped us in its sweaty embrace.
…And you at home with watery eyes…think of how it is to die…beneath the cruel uncloudy skies…on the Llano Estacado…
Okay, it warmed up some and we knew that Turkey Pass offered little shade. What we didn’t know was that two surprises and a near collapse awaited in the pass.
In the middle of the steepest section, Karen sat down hard on a boulder, looking a little roasted and uninterested in scouring a field guide for a difficult identification of a small yellow flower I was presenting. A challenge had befallen us. After many thoughtful and encouraging words from me, I knew my sentiments were having an effect when she responded with a cold, hard stare. I wandered off a ways to give her some alone time…I mean look for wildflowers.
We were on the trail again and in no time, I heard Karen give a yelp and say, “Kelly look at this!” She was standing in a small garden of Mexican Mallow flowers. Until this discovery, we only knew of the location in Bandera County described in the last dispatch. But many more blooms were visible in our new discovery. We lingered a moment.
Also, on this portion of the trail we discovered a new flower for us – the Basin Bellflower. Enquist calls it “truly rare.” Eroded slopes of granite domes are its preferred haunt, and it is found only on the unquarried granite domes in Burnet, Mason, and Llano counties. A delicate, rare little blue bell that Enquist calls “relatively unknown, unstudied, and unappreciated.” We piled on some appreciation before we moved on.
On the backside of Turkey Pass in the shadowed, creekside humidity it was my turn to overheat. Karen had solved her issue by soaking a bandana in water and wrapping it around her neck. It was difficult for me to understand why that particular bandana could not be cut in half and shared as she skipped down the trail in front me singing a “Cool as a Cucumber” ditty I had not heard from her before.
Many more wildflower species were identified and our species list swelled past 59 species – our old record from 2000. We began to wonder if a new day’s record of 88 was possible. We knew a mystery flower may be awaiting us up ahead as well.
For many years now, when the spring had been wet and ephemeral streams crisscrossed the hill country, we would find a fragrant yellow flower with its feet firmly set in a shallow pool where some soil had gathered on the granite. We do not see it every year, and we had not been able to identify it at all. None of our hill country flower guides showed such a flower.
As we neared the area of this mystery flower area, Karen began to smell its sweet scent and once again we were before the mystery. We made our usual notes of its size and flower type, then filled with hope we started for home. This time would be different.
Purely by accident, we identified the flower. I was looking in an old and rarely used Peterson guide and stumbled upon – the Horned Bladderwort. Much vigorous celebration ensued over this identification, but only in the coolest possible way. The details follow (of the flower, not the celebration).
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center says the Horned Bladderwort is a carnivorous plant that is able “to suck very small organisms in through the bladders and digest them.” Growing conditions require wet and sandy soil – check. Apparently, this species can be terrestrial as well as aquatic – check, it would not likely be submerged for much longer. The Center says its native distribution is “Ontario to Nova Scotia; south to Pennsylvania; west to Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Also North Carolina south to Florida, and in e. Texas” – hmmmm. Llano County is not east Texas, but we stand by the identification in our very unofficial capacity as flower identifiers. Link to Wildflower Center information: https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=UTCO
Our final count was 81 species of wildflowers, crushing the old 2000 record for Enchanted Rock. We missed some identifications, and I feel that a 90 species day awaits a hardier explorer.
Nature
Emma Marris says, in her TedX talk, “Nature is not [those areas] untouched by humanity. Nature is anywhere life thrives, anywhere there are multiple species together, anywhere it’s green and blue and thriving and filled with life and growing.”
She recounts a story of a man who stopped mowing his backyard for two years. A plant survey of his yard identified 375 species, including two endangered plants. I think this is incredibly fantastic.
Negotiations with Karen are still ongoing.