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Other Nations: A Naturalist’s Blog about Buffalo Bayou
by Alisa Kline

Posts Tagged: Texas flora

Aug 21

The jigsaw puzzle problem

Over the past year and a half writing this blog, I have become aware of what I’ve taken to calling the jigsaw puzzle problem. Until I began looking at plants and animals in detail, I didn’t realize how interdependent the whole enterprise of life is. Monarch butterflies are a familiar example. Monarchs have to lay… Read more »

Aug 07

Miracle prairie

It is perhaps a sign of advancing age, but I often ask myself about the purpose of this and that. Life, emotions, the entire living enterprise that is Earth. This is a blog about a park, so don’t expect big answers, but from the unique perspective of a minor nature blogger, the purpose of everything… Read more »

Jul 17

Sexy Little Blue

People have long argued about which is the sexiest heron. Okay, no one has ever argued about which is the sexiest heron. But that little blue heron I saw on Monday was damned sexy! Little blue herons are not nearly as common as the other herons we see regularly in the Park. iNaturalist has only… Read more »

Jul 03

Hot Spot

Free food! Hang that sign in front of a restaurant and the line will be around the block in no time. This is, of course, a terrible business plan. But it does illustrate a universal truth: everyone wants to eat and the less money or energy expended the better. Places full of food tend to… Read more »

Jun 04

Prairie Days (and a big chick!)

The North American Prairie Conference has come to Houston for the first time ever and because of that, I’m spending time in a classroom rather than our Park. What, you might ask, do grasslands have to do with Houston? Just EVERYTHING!! For at least 20,000 years, Houston was part of a vast grassland ecology that stretched… Read more »

Apr 03

Wild onions and a bunch of mistakes

The Park is full of wild onions. All of Houston is full of them. They are visually intriguing, but I didn’t think they were interesting enough to write about. This is an onion. Story told. So I didn’t do much more than enjoy how they bite back sharply when you nibble them. But this week,… Read more »

Mar 20

Tiny spring has sprung

Big spring arrives soon with fields of wildflowers buzzing with bees, birds migrating through, butterflies flitting hither and yon, and mosquitoes. That last one isn’t a delight, but reality is what it is. But before big spring gets here, you might take a moment to enjoy tiny spring. I should note that tiny spring is… Read more »

Mar 13

Wolves!

Ancient Europeans took note of a flower that grew in barren soil. They decided that this plant must be stealing the nutrients other plants need and hoarding them for itself. Hence, it was like a wolf, stealing animals from the flocks they tended. They called the flower lupine which is Latin for wolf-like. We no… Read more »

Nov 20

Our Park is getting seedy!

There is an eye-catching plant in our Park right now. Usually, when I post about an eye-catching plant, it is in glorious bloom. But in this case, the plant is in glorious seed. It bloomed months ago and I have to admit, I didn’t even notice. The plant is Baccharis halimifolia, its common names include… Read more »

Nov 14

Tasty/Deadly

First, the tasty. Knotweed (also known as smartweed) is blooming in our Park right now. It is fairly insignificant looking but it packs a heck of a punch! It is spicy. Peppery hot. Indigenous people and early European settlers used it to flavor their stews and salads. When  you chew a leaf (only a bit,… Read more »

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“[Animals] are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

—Henry Beston, The Outermost House

 

For sightings, questions or comments email blog@alisakline.com.

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