On a recent trip to Austin and Fredericksburg, I spotted a limestone hillside south of Abilene covered in these beautiful pink wildflowers. I was unable to stop and photograph them on the way to Austin, but I figured I would have an opportunity on the way home.

We were heading north from Junction, Texas when I spotted some of these beautiful flowers and had my wife pull over on the shoulder of what we thought was a low traffic highway. We had seen very little traffic since leaving Junction, but during the 20 minute stop, we were nearly killed by an impatient motorist who started to pass a car on the shoulder of the road near where we were parked. This is illegal, and he would have killed me and hit the car and my wife at 75 miles per hour. I’ve heard of dying for your art, but I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice either one of us for pretty pink flowers. Thankfully, this idiot saw us in time and we lived to tell the tale.

Pictured here is an example of Centaurium beyrichii, or Mountain Pink. It is a member of the Gentian family (Gentianaceae). It is an annual that tolerates dry, rocky, limestone rich soils and makes a colorful addition to rock gardens. You can read more about them at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower website at wildflower.org and USDA Plants website which shows that this species is only found in Texas and Oklahoma.

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Every spring, the lilac bush on the corner of our patio blooms with beautiful, large clusters of pink flowers. The scent of these blooms fill the backyard with a luscious perfume. The bee colony that lives in a hollow in our Sycamore tree awakens from its winter sleep to these wonderful flowers full of nectar.

Syringa vulgaris is scientific name for this shrub. It is not native to the US and has been carried to all parts of the earth by man, for obvious reasons. The common lilac is thought to have originated in the highlands of the Balkan countries of Europe. Our Lilac bush is nearly 10 feet tall and we expect it to top out around 15 feet.

The Common Lilac belongs to the Oleaceae family which contains Olive and Ash trees, and the beautiful Jasmine vines. The Order Lamiales contains the Oleaceae and twenty other families making the Lilac distantly related to other valuable plants we use like Rosemary, Mint, and Basil and the teak tree.

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The large pink and white flowers pictured here are Oenothera speciosa, also known as Pink Ladies. Some folks call them showy primroses or prairie primroses. Whatever common name you choose, these members of the Evening Primrose family (Onagraceae) are beautiful with their pink and white petals and yellow near the center of the flower.

Each flower has 4 broad petals and they are fragile and easily damaged. Within this species, petal color can range from rosy pink to nearly all white in color. Their alternately arranged leaves are 2 to 3 inches long and have coarsely toothed margins. Also, you will sometimes see that the leaves can be deeply lobed making them appear pinnately compound. This kind of leaf shape is called pinnatifid.

Primroses of all kinds have very distinctive long anthers on their stamens. The tops of their Pistils form a cross. These characters along with the 4 petaled flowers help make these prolific plants easy to identify.

In both images, you can also see a single bloom of Pyrrhopappus pauciflorus, the Small-flower Desert Chicory. Some folks call this member of the Daisy family (Asteraceae) the Texas Dandelion. The diameter of the flower pictured is between 1.5 and 2 inches which is much larger than your regular dandelion. Additionally, this species gets taller than regular dandelions. Unlike other Asteraceae, Texas Dandelions lack a button or disk flowers in the center of their blooms; instead, they only make the ray flowers, the ones with petals. As a result, Small-flower Desert Chicory look like larger versions of the familiar dandelion.

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