Photo Essay
Habitats: Breaks & Canyons: Spring on the Stockton Plateau
Cathy Hoak, a member of the 2009 class of the Llano Estacado chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists, has property east of Iraan, Texas, where she spends many weekends. She explores the rugged country with camera in hand, recording what is to be found. Thanks to her work, the incredible diversity of the region is being recorded, with many species of organisms being located that are out of range, unusual, or rare. Lancaster Hill, just east of Fort Lancaster has been known to biologists for 20 years as having unusual taxon, but until now, little recording of the flora and fauna of the region has occurred.
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Antelope horns is a common spring perennial wildflower. In closeup the blooms are intricate.
The antelope horn blooms are followed by large pods.
Birdwing passionflower is plentiful in rainy years. The leaves are distinctive.
Blue gilia blooms anytime there is rain in the growing season.
Chamaesaracha, or false ground cherry, is another perennial that blooms with every rain.
Croton pottsii, or doveweed, is a favorite food of doves.
Fleabane is a common annual. A tea can be made to use as an insecticide from its leaves.
Germander is a common perennial spring flower.
A gulf fritillary butterfly found the verbena to be tasty. Verbena will start blooming in January.
Normally hillside pinks (also known as mountain pinks) can be white. A tea made of this plant will break a fever.
2009 was the best year ever for hillside pinks. Thousands of acres were covered with the blooms.
Horehound can be made into candy that is good for sorethroats. It came from Europe in medicinal plant gardens with the Pilgrims.
Huisache daisy is a common spring annual.
Innocence (or bluets) are a common perennial flower in rocky soil.
Three species of blue curls are found in West Texas… this one in rocky soil, another for sanddunes, and a third for tighter soils.
Perennial blue morning glories are scattered here and there in the region.
New Mexico croton is also a favorite food of the doves.
Purple nightshade makes asadero cheese.
Onions have small black seeds.
Orange flax is a common annual in West Texas.
Woolly paintbrush is found only on the Stockton Plateau.
Dogweed can be used as a flavoring (it tastes like lemon.)
Pepperweed (the flat seeds) is an excellent tart addition to spring salads. Yellow spiny aster can bloom year around.
Perfume ball is a perennial daisy without ray flowers (petals) with red blossoms that fade to white when it seeds out.
Purple thistle attracts butterflies to the blooms, and goldfinches to its seeds.
Skullcap is a powerful medicinal tea, often used in spring tonics in the days when herbal medicine was the norm.
Sleepy daisy is a perennial wildflower sold by national seed companies.
A taller species of rabbit tobacco grows in the rocky soils of the Stockton Plateau than what grows on the Llano Estacado. It is another daisy without ray flowers.
A tall yellow flax only grows in the rocky soils of the area.
Two leaved senna is poisonous to livestock, but can be a pretty perennial xeriscape plant.
This small red berry was found on an almost leafless plant only a few inches tall. Sibley staff has no idea what it is!
Verbena can make showy mounds with lots of rain. It is an annual.
Vervain is another spring tonic in herbal medicine.
White rainlilies only appear a few days after rains, and quickly disappear again. It prefers rocky clay soils.
White rock lettuce is a spectacular daisy without disc flowers, and can be an addition to the xeriscape perennial garden.
Zexmenia blooms when it rains, and is used in xeriscape gardening.
Zone tailed hawks often fly with turkey vultures. Prey animals ignore vultures, so zone tailed hawks are able to fool prey critters.
Acacia greggi has long white fuzzy blossoms before the seedpods begin to form. The seedpods will be the size of cooked bacon when ripe.
Algerita frut makes great jelly.
Algerita blooms are super sweet, and can be smelled for hundreds of feet.
Ash throated flycatchers are summer residents of the area, and nest in cavities in wood, rock, or pipe.
Buck moth larvae feed on oaks, and some members of the genus have stinging hairs on the larvae.
Black scorpions, Pseudouroctonus reddelli, are also found in caves. It is common in the Texas Hill Country.
Black throated sparrows are also known as desert sparrows, and are often found in creosote bush habitat, but can be found in thick deciduous brush through out the region.
Bluestems hold onto their seeds until the spring.
Horsecrippler blooms are bright spots against the white rocks, and easy to find.
Mammalaria spines protect the soft tubercules of flesh underneath.
Strawberry cactus spines are stouter than mammalaria spines.
This form of horsecrippler is called turk’s head locally, but so far the Sibley staff has not found any sources that delineate it as a separate species. It may be eagleclaw cactus, Echinocactus horizonthalonius.
Creosote bush, here with blooms and seeds, mostly grows in the valleys in the region, but some plants can be found higher up above the cliffs of the draw.
Crevice spiny lizards love the rocky cliffs of the region.
Devil’s claw (or ram’s horns) is an annual. Note the caterpillar of a hornworm on the lower right side of the photograph.
An amazing diversity of ferns can be found in the region. When the Sibley Nature Center gets a copy of Michael Powell’s Ferns of Trans-Pecos Texas, we may be able to identify the species.
We think this is a Notholaena of some species.
This one may be, too.
For now, we only know this one, the bulb cloakfern.
Locals call this fishhook cactus… it may be a member of the Ancistrocactus genus, according to one of our old books. Taxonomists argue about cactus identification continually, and every book seems to change the Latin names.
Dried grass leaves can make interesting patterns.
Jackrabbits prefer the flats, not the steep hills and cliffs.
Javelina bush has dark red seeds.
Several species of katydid are found in the region.
Lark sparrows are another common summer nesting species to West Texas, found in almost every habitat.
Lecheguilla agave has small fruit.
Lichens are everywhere.
Little leaf sumac berries make a wonderful tasting lemonade drink.
Spotted whiptail lizards are found on the more flat topography of the area.
Southern prairie lizards are found on the rocky slopes, too.
Male diamondback rattlesnakes wrestle for dominance, and usually a female is nearby, but hidden.
Mariola is kin to rabbit tobacco, and some Hispanic old-timers of the region say it makes a great chewy gum to chew on the flower buds.
Mauryanda is a delicate fine that crawls over almost every bush in the region. It has small blue snapdragon flowers.
Mexican persimmon fruit will turn black in early fall and make a pleasant jelly.
Climbing milkweeds have large pods that split open to release seeds that fly away with the wind.
Mockingbirds are common, since many species of berry producing plants are found in the habitat.
Mourning doves will flick their wings to startle competing birds away from food and water.
After a rain, moss is common on the rocks of the area.
Mottled rock rattlers come in many shades, and in the white limestone of the region, they are very pale.
False pennyroyal (Hedeoma) makes a wonderful tasting tea. The plant is usually only a few inches tall.
Prickly pear blossoms fade to orange after starting out as yellow.
Round tailed horned lizards are common in the region.
Centruroides vittatus, or striped bark scorpions are common.
Short lined skinks are rarely seen, since they are fossorial and hide under leaf litter most of the time.
Sotol blooms slowly wither and hang on to the stalks of the plant.
Wolf spiders of several species skedaddle along on the ground.
Trapdoor spiders are rarely seen, but emerge after rains.
The upper canyon below Cathy’s house shows how rough the landscape is.
Vermillion flycatchers are sometimes found near stocktanks year around.
The zonetailed hawk built a nest, laid one egg, but a thunderstorm knocked the egg to the ground.