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| Bluebonnets and paintbrushes |
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| We got 'em! |
Plus, there was a nice contingent of paintbrush flowers (AKA Indian paintbrushes).
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| Sometimes the paintbrushes dominate |
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| The Ennis Welcome Center has lovely glass sculptures |
Ennis, Texas
Ennis is a town of 22,000 people just south of the DFW area that is surrounded by farms and ranches that turn into the Ennis Bluebonnet Trails in April. The Bluebonnet Trails Festival, held at the end of the month, celebrates the state flower of Texas and the vibrant bloom of wildflowers in the surrounding countryside.
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| Trail map |
First hosted in a town park in 1938, the Bluebonnet Trails have expanded into a 40-mile route along rural farm roads through the countryside east and northeast of the city.
The Trails have been hosted and mapped out by the Ennis Garden Club since 1951.
In 1997, the Texas Legislature designated Ennis the "Bluebonnet City of Texas" and the official "Bluebonnet Trail of Texas."
Why is this Flower Special?
Bluebonnet is a name given to any of a number of purple-flowered or blue-flowered annual wildflower species of the genus Lupinus predominantly found in southwestern United States. The multiple species are collectively the state flower of Texas (it is too hard to identify one from another to select one species).
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| They are lupines |
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| Do you see a bonnet? |
The shape of the petals is said to resemble bonnets worn by pioneer women to shield them from the sun.
Bluebonnets mean spring in Texas and Former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson has a lot to do with that.
When her husband, Lyndon B. Johnson, was President, Lady Bird was involved in highway beautification. After they left the White House and returned to their beloved Hill Country, she began encouraging planting wildflowers and native plants along Texas highways.
Click here to see my 2021 post about visiting the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center near Austin.
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| Becca in bluebonnets, 1991 |
A common sight in springtime, bluebonnets serve as a popular backdrop for family photographs. The Department of Public Safety even issues safety recommendations with regard to pulling off highways to take such pictures (it's not usual to see groups of children on Interstate medians).
Bluebonnets thrive in degraded soils in full sun with little competition. That means that you'll often see big fields of bluebonnets on heavily grazed land, land that has experienced recent fires and land that has been mown, such as a roadside.
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| Bluebonnets in a field |
In fact, TxDOT times roadside mowing to allow for bluebonnets and other wildflowers to reseed for following years. TxDOT also buys and sows about 30,000 pounds of wildflower seed annually. While it isn't illegal to pick bluebonnets or to walk through them on public lands, Texas encourages people to avoid crushing or picking them so that everyone can enjoy them.
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| We were careful walking in the fields (to protect the flowers and avoid snakes) |
Bluebonnets germinate in the fall and their rosettes (clusters of leaves) grow over the winter. In late winter and early spring, after the warm rains begin to fall, the rosettes grow into larger plants and begin to blossom.
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| Right on time this year |
While peak bluebonnet season is usually in early April, it's difficult to predict exactly when bluebonnets will bloom from year to year.
With a lovely scent, they are attractive to pollinators and serve as host plants to several species of butterfly, including Northern Cloudywing, Gray Hairstreak, Henry's Elfin, Orange Sulphur and Painted and American Lady.
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| Pollinators love them |
They also put nitrogen into the soil, which enriches it for other plants.
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| Photo: PlantAnswers |
When pollen from the blue flowers pollinates flowers of the other colors, the resulting seeds will more likely develop into blue-flowering plants.
I have seen a few light purple and white ones, but most I have seen were blue.
While we often speak in terms of bluebonnets, in actuality, it is wildflowers we seek, especially the brilliant scarlet-to-orange paintbrush that often blooms in concert with bluebonnets.
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| Dramatic |
Paintbrush flowers can also be cream, yellow or occasionally purple, but that is far less common.
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| We found a few yellow ones |
The bright tips of the petal-like bracts look like they've been dipped in paint. With their contrasting colors, the two flowers boost each other's vibrance when blooming together.
So, we toured all the trails, stopping in parks and on roadsides to photograph fields of ...
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| ... pure bluebonnets ... |
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| ... bluebonnets and paintbrushes ... |
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| ... and, occasionally, bluebonnets with other flowers |
Some of the highlights (and very Texas sights), included ...
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| Some domestic Swans in a private pond ... |
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| ... Longhorn cattle ... |
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| ... including a few calves ... |
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| ... mixed herds of cattle ... |
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| ... with even more calves ... |
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| ... old farm equipment ... |
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| ... and the most perfect Texas barn that you could imagine ... |
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| Caty comparing her shot to theirs |
Before the eclipse, Scott, Caty and I toured part of the trails and then Caty and I went back and did the rest of the route.
The weather was gorgeous for these excursions, so we had to declare this part of the visit a success!
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| Win!!! |
Texas Longhorns
I mentioned that we saw some Texas Longhorns, so let's just talk a little about this iconic critter ...
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| Texas Longhorn cow |
A uniquely American breed of beef cattle, the Texas Longhorn is characterized by (not surprisingly) long horns, which can span more than eight feet from tip to tip. Steers generally have the longest horns. The records are 10.58 feet for a steer, 8.67 feet for a cow and 8.58 feet for a bull.
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| World record holder, Poncho Via; Photo: NPR |
Longhorns can be any color or mix of colors.
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| About 40 percent have some shade of red, often a light red |
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| A black bull |
The cattle can also be variations of black, blue, brown, cream, dun, grey, yellow or white, either with or without patterns, including a striped pattern, brindling, speckling or spotting. Despite the diversity of colors seen in Texas Longhorns, just one or two pigments produce all of the hair colors (this is true for all mammals). Eumelanin is black that can also look gray or brown. Phaeomelanin is red that can look orange or yellow in lower concentrations.
If neither pigment is produced, then hair is white. Therefore, all of the roans, brindles, speckled patterns, linebacks, grullas, reds, yellows, oranges, browns and blacks seen in Texas Longhorns come from varying amounts and patterns of expression of these two pigments on different parts of the body. However, the distribution of these two pigments is controlled by a large number of different genes, which makes the inheritance of the two pigments somewhat complex.
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| A typical look |
The breed originated from cattle brought from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas by Spanish Conquistadors from 1493 until about 1512.
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| The Andalusian cattle I saw in Spain looked similar (because they are) |
Spaniards used the cattle in Mexico and gradually moved them north to accompany their expanding settlements. They reached the area that became known as "Texas" near the end of the 17th century. Eventually, some cattle escaped or were turned loose on the open range, where they remained mostly feral for the next two centuries. Over several generations, descendants of these "hardy" cattle developed to have high feed- and drought-stress tolerances.
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| Painting: Peakpx |
Still, Texas Longhorn stock slowly dwindled and faced extinction. The breed received significant attention after a Texas Longhorn named "Bevo" was adopted as the mascot of The University of Texas at Austin in 1917.
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| The first Bevo |
In 1927, the U.S. Forest Service collected a small herd to breed on the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Lawton, Oklahoma, basically saving the species. A few years later,
small herds were kept in Texas State Parks.
Longhorns were cared for largely as curiosities, but the stock's longevity, resistance to disease and ability to thrive on marginal pastures resulted in a revival of the breed as beef stock. They are inextricably linked to Texas history.
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| This one lives at Pipespring national Monument in Arizona |
In 1957, Charles Schreiner III created a Longhorn herd on his YO Ranch in Mountain Home, Texas, as a tribute to the ranching legacy of his grandfather. In 1966, Schreiner organized a cattle drive of Longhorn steers from San Antonio, Texas, to Dodge City, Kansas, as a centennial commemoration of Chisholm Trail drives. As part of the festivities, Schreiner had local members of the Quanah Sheriff's Posse stage a simulated "Indian attack" as the steers crossed the Red River. The attack was so authentic that the cattle stampeded. Four hours were needed to reassemble the herd.
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| Texas's official large mammal |
When we were photographing Longhorns, we witnessed a female moving a calf along using her prodigious horns ...
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| That must have hurt |
... and, the bull charged the fence ...
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| That could have hurt |
Gotta Go
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| Selfie time! |
Caty had to go back to work and Scott was leaving the next day to drive back through Texas with a friend to attend the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
I was heading south and (as it turned out) saying good-bye to bluebonnets.
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| A last look |
Trip date: April 7-17, 2024
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