I believe these are a subspecies of the dwarf Iris. Something like Iris Verna var smalliana or something. I can’t ever remember the scientific name for it.
These are one of the three species of silver bells that we have. I don’t know them well enough to pick them apart. Something to do with the leaves though.
Just got back home. Was a good hiking day. Seen tons of stuff blooming , flying , slithering and crawling. Was nice in the upper 70°s. Hiked right around 12 miles today total. Did not bring anyone with me this time. Just wanted to relax alone.
I think that the fine for just touching a native Hawaiian land snail is $500. >95% (was ~5000) of the species have gone extinct within the last century.
YIke. That is sad, but I am glad I don’t live there and have to worry about accidentally touching one. . I think I picked a pitcher plant once, and realized it was illegal in our state–felt guilty after that (but they’re not that rare). I have just a few trilliums on my property, and it is illegal to pick them–I try to be sure not to step on them, too, when they are just growing and hard to see!
They are essentially completely gone from any areas with human habitation, having either died off from habitat loss, gotten eaten by introduced Euglandina, or been relocated to protected areas (that’s where I saw some).
Not a great photo (from an iPhone 7), but it’s cool to look out and see the deer among the cranes finding last fall’s dropped soybeans. They were closer later, but there wasn’t enough light:
Gorgeous!!!
My crocuses are stubbornly holding out, while it keeps snowing on them.
German-style farm house. I really know nothing about Texas, except that my Oma’s family was from Neu Braunfels TX and had originally come over (a generation or two before) from Dillenberg Germany as part of a group that followed a no-future, spare princely second son, who hoped for better prospects over here. I’ve been to Dillenberg. Never Neu Braunfels.
Opa was the son of a German immigrant living in Michigan, and ended up drafted to WWI near the end. He did Basic Training in Texas, where he met my Oma, who was in nurse’s school. Opa never shipped out. They got married, and he brought the war home on the train with him —a newlywed couple with mother-in-law, smart-mouthed-teen sister-in-law and a not-long-for-this-cold-climate treasured palm tree.
The same thing happened to my grandfather’s oldest uncle: he was drafted in 1918, trained, and was on board ship heading across the Atlantic when Germany surrendered.