Drummond Phlox At Enchanted Rock_02

Title

Drummond Phlox At Enchanted Rock_02

Artist

Greg Reed

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

Taken March 2013 at Enchanted Rock, Hill Country, Texas


Drummond phlox

Phlox drummondii
Phlox drummondii Hook.
Annual phlox, Phlox, Drummond phlox
Polemoniaceae (Phlox Family)
Synonym(s):
USDA Symbol: PHDR
USDA Native Status: L48 (N), CAN (I)

A much-branched, sticky-glandular plant with bright rose-red, pink, or white flowers in tight clusters at the ends of stems. Annual phlox or Drummonds phlox is a showy annual. Usually 6-12 in. tall, this phlox can reach 20 in. in height. Its flowers, usually with a pale center, range in color from pink to red, white, peach, or lavender. The 1 in. blooms are in terminal clusters and are trumpet-shaped with a short, narrow tube. The leaves are soft, hairy and sticky. This southern flower of roadsides and fields escaped from cultivation. The species is named for Thomas Drummond, who sent seeds from Texas to England in 1835.

It is not commonly known that one of Texas’ most beautiful wildflowers has been prized in Europe as an “exotic” cultivated garden flower for nearly 150 years. In 1835, botanist Thomas Drummond collected the seeds of this annual wildflower in an area where a red-colored variety overlapped with a pink-flowered form. This collection of wild seed was sent first to Great Britain and later was distributed to nurserymen in several European countries. About 200 true breeding strains were developed from this single collection of seed, including red, pink, white, lavender, maroon, coral, pale pink, and the mixtures of these colors, with the central “eye” of the flower differing in color from the outer color of the petals.

The species name of this plant is named for Thomas Drummond, (ca. 1790-1835), naturalist, born in Scotland, around 1790. In 1830 he made a trip to America to collect specimens from the western and southern United States. In March, 1833, he arrived at Velasco, Texas to begin his collecting work in that area. He spent twenty-one months working the area between Galveston Island and the Edwards Plateau, especially along the Brazos, Colorado, and Guadalupe rivers. His collections were the first made in Texas that were extensively distributed among the museums and scientific institutions of the world. He collected 750 species of plants and 150 specimens of birds. Drummond had hoped to make a complete botanical survey of Texas, but he died in Havana, Cuba, in 1835, while making a collecting tour of that island.

Source: https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PHDR


Enchanted Rock

Enchanted Rock (16710 Ranch Rd 965, Fredericksburg TX) is a pink granite mountain located in the Llano Uplift approximately 17 miles (27 km) north of Fredericksburg, Texas and 24 miles (39 km) south of Llano, Texas, United States. Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, which includes Enchanted Rock and surrounding land, spans the border between Gillespie County and Llano County, south of the Llano River. Enchanted Rock covers approximately 640 acres (260 ha) and rises approximately 425 feet (130 m) above the surrounding terrain to elevation of 1,825 feet (556 m) above sea level. It is the largest pink granite monadnock in the United States. Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, a part of the Texas state park system, includes 1,644 acres (665 ha).[4] Designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1936.[5]

Enchanted Rock was rated in 2017 as the best campsite in Texas in a 50-state survey conducted by Msn.com.[6]

The prominent granite dome is visible for many miles in the surrounding basin of the Llano Uplift. The weathered dome, standing above the surrounding plain is known to geologists as a monadnock. The rock is actually the visible above-ground part of a segmented ridge, the surface expression of a large igneous batholith, called the Town Mountain Granite[7] of middle Precambrian (1,082 ± 6 million years ago)[8] material that intruded into earlier metamorphic schist, called the Packsaddle Schist.[7] The intrusive granite of the rock mass, or pluton, was exposed by extensive erosion of the surrounding sedimentary rock, primarily the Cretaceous Edwards limestone, which is exposed a few miles to the south of Enchanted Rock.[7]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Rock

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April 1st, 2013

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