Habitats of the Llano Estacado
Sanddunes
Photoessay: Plants of the Sanddunes
(photographs by Bill Loos, text by Burr Williams)
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The sanddunes normally have two seasons of wildflower blooms. In the fall sand sunflower can make an incredible show.
Sand heliotrope usually germinates after late summer thundershowers, and blooms well into the fall.
Tumble ringwing is a plant only found in the fall - and in some years can present a smattering of fall color. After it dies in the winter, the plant tumbles along (like the more familiar tumbleweed, a native of Russia).
In the winter the skeletons of plants can attract attention. Here the berries of trompillo are in front of the seedpod of the devil's claw.
Spring brings more diversity to the wildflowers. Mid-April to mid-May can produce incredible wildflower scenes - the showiest anywhere in Texas! Abronia can cover the dunes.
Pink sand penstemon is a favorite of West Texans. To grow it in the home landscape, though, a person has to build a raised bed and fill it with sanddune sand!
Rayed palafoxia can also be prolific. This plant is unusual - for some of the central disc flowers are blooming like the ray flowers along the edge. Natural "sports" occur in plants frequently, and observant wildflower seed collectors love to find unusual forms of favorite plants.
Spiderwort blossoms are normally blue, but in past years a white form has been found.
Another common sanddune plant is the upright 2 foot tall Hartweg's Evening Primrose - and it is another endemic to the sanddunes (only found in the dunes).
Sanddunes also have white evening primroses.
Woolly dalea is another sanddune endemic. To admire its delicate beauty, lie down on your belly and look close!
Sensitive briar also requires loose sandy soil, and can be very common in the dunes.
In West Texas bull nettle only grows in the sanddunes. It is much more common in the rainy southern United States.
If a person touches a bull nettle, tiny blisters and red welts immediately form. But, if you know what you are doing and can open the seed pods, the "nuts" inside are quite tasty!
Indians used Jimson weed as a painkiller.
Another common plant in the dunes is groundsel.
Prickly poppy has the most delicate petals - as thin as paper.
Gourds have roots the size of an adult human's leg.
Devil's bouquet has an elarged taproot as well, but prefer the tighter soils between the dunes.
It is rare to find a prickly pear on dunes - they die when covered with blow-sand.
Yuccas, however, are well adapted to the dunes. They keep growing when covered with sand, and if the sand blows away, the root becomes a trunk.
Shinoak has the same ability to survive in the drifting sands. It is weird, though, to see "a tree on stilts," stilts made of its roots.