Did yesterday’s post whet your appetite for the Old Zoo Nature Trail? Certainly it did mine! Hence, more of Jeanne’s photos on the trail!
Jeanne takes a shot of the yellowish crustose lichens. Of course the shadows are pretty neat too.
Now this looks like the heads of three giant boulder critters. Well, that’s what I see. LOL
Again another lovely path shot.
Jeanne found Spike-moss when she climbed up the rock she said. The Spike-moss in this photo is almost on the right side of the front boulder. So you see the brown patch, right? 😉
A closeup of the Spike-moss. My guess is that it might be Peruvian Spike-moss(Selaginella peruviana). That species is the closest on range map from the Atlas of the Vascular Plants of Texas Volume 2.
A beautiful nest of Hedgehog cacti! So from the photos, I am going to say the genus Echinocereus. Looking at the Atlas of Texas Plants, I would go with the Lace Cactus (Echinocereus reichenbachii). Echino means spiny and cereus means wax candle. According to FNCT, genus has smooth spines and is ribbed.
If you can zoom in on some of the leaves, a short bristle protrudes at the tip of the leaf. Additionally if the rachis is glabrous this would lead to Wright’s Cliffbrake Fern (Pellaea wrightiana). Purple Cliffbrake Fern (Pellaea atropurpurea), the more common one in Wise County, does not have that bristle and the rachis is pubescent. However, I can not see this detail in this photo. Certainly, this means I need to go see for myself. LOL Furthermore, Jeanne (in Montague County) has Wright’s Cliffbrake so perhaps I should be looking more closely at the Pellaea ferns on the grasslands.
Indeed, a wonderful combination of colors of crustose lichens!
Pebbled Pixie Cup Lichens (Cladonia peziziformis) were found too!
In fact, it looks like Jeanne found several patches of the Pixie Cups.
My fav cacti photo! The cacti are horizonal on the vertical rock. Imagine how pretty that will be when it blooms this spring.
The more you know, the more you see and the more you see, the more you know
8 Comments
Jeanne sure got some great pictures. I love the boulders with the shadows on them. The horizontal cactus on that Boulder certainly is different. Kinda looks like a magical place. Thanks again Jeanne and Mary for posting them.
Such a neat place!
Lace Cactus was my thought too except the spines should be white. This rusty red orange color is not typical for E. reichenbachii.
I will try to find my TX cacti books and see what other possibilities there are.
I did some looking in my Cacti of TX book and didn’t find anything in the north TX region that matches this. I found something more in west TX. So searched iNat and found a subspecies of reichenbachii. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3022257 But ssp baileyi only seems to be in OK. I looked at the Lace Cactus that have been posted https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/162187-Echinocereus-reichenbachii/browse_photos and a few have reddish spines but mostly white and not as covered with as many spines as this one. I wonder if this cactus was dying or is that subspecies possibly found in this area Jeanne visited. The amount of spines as well as the color are really perplexing me.
I also have that book and couldn’t find anything either. The FNCT does say that some can have the reddish spines. And somewhere I have heard that a lot of cacti hybridize. The ssp baileyi looks pretty good, so maybe it is that but just not been verified in iNat. On WFO, it lists some 7 or 8 ssp and probably the same number of varieties. So that those might be possibilities too. I certainly don’t have enough info to go any further than genus. If you come up with something let us know. 🙂
Jeanne sure got some great pictures. I love the boulders with the shadows on them. The horizontal cactus on that Boulder certainly is different. Kinda looks like a magical place. Thanks again Jeanne and Mary for posting them.
Jeanne did a really excellent job of showing its magic!
You definitely nailed the species for both fern and spike moss – Jeff sent me a text confirming the spike moss. Great detective work!
Thanks for the confirmation!
Such a neat place!
Lace Cactus was my thought too except the spines should be white. This rusty red orange color is not typical for E. reichenbachii.
I will try to find my TX cacti books and see what other possibilities there are.
I did some looking in my Cacti of TX book and didn’t find anything in the north TX region that matches this. I found something more in west TX. So searched iNat and found a subspecies of reichenbachii. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3022257 But ssp baileyi only seems to be in OK. I looked at the Lace Cactus that have been posted https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/162187-Echinocereus-reichenbachii/browse_photos and a few have reddish spines but mostly white and not as covered with as many spines as this one. I wonder if this cactus was dying or is that subspecies possibly found in this area Jeanne visited. The amount of spines as well as the color are really perplexing me.
I also have that book and couldn’t find anything either. The FNCT does say that some can have the reddish spines. And somewhere I have heard that a lot of cacti hybridize. The ssp baileyi looks pretty good, so maybe it is that but just not been verified in iNat. On WFO, it lists some 7 or 8 ssp and probably the same number of varieties. So that those might be possibilities too. I certainly don’t have enough info to go any further than genus. If you come up with something let us know. 🙂
I think that is as far as we can get for now. Unless Jeanne posts it on iNat or to some cacti experts.