Penny Cress Saves the Day

Our one flowering wildflower on this wonderful day was the very pretty perennial called penny cress or candy tufts.  It is the former Thlaspi fendleri, but is now Nocceae fendleri. That’s my photo of the plant and it doesn’t do the plant justice. If you get a chance look it up at the marvelous web site SEINet.

Alligator bark juniper apparently is the old common name. Now a days it is simply alligator juniper. I’m now up to date, but after seeing all those male juniper plants getting ready to explode with pollen I’m thinking it could be called “pollengator juniper.” The botanical, by the way is still Juniperus deppeana and alleluia for that!
In central Texas and the land of Juniperus ashei folks suffer terribly from the pollen and call their suffering cedar fever. We’ve been in Santa Fe when the Juniperus monosperma are releasing their pollen making much of the populace there quite miserable. I don’t remember anyone having a name for their misery, but we heard lots of nasally profanities.

Oh, the dog barking in the background is Burley. I suspect you will hear more of and about him. The photos are mine and taken on the day of our walk through the woodland.