Sunday Nature Photos

I have this neighbor up the street with a yard xeroscaped with Texas natives. The yard is really cool and I've been meaning to introduce myself as I walk Marge by there a few times a week. I finally had the chance and met this nice lady who belongs to the Texas Native Plant Society and invited me to check out her greenhouse in the back. She uses almost no water save to get things established. Eventually, I would like to have such a yard and I'll probably join the society. Anyway, here is a photo I took the other day of a really cool legume, Scarlet Pea (Indigofera miniata var. leptosepala (Nutt. ex. Torr. & A. Gray) B. Turner).

We have a lot of southern magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) planted in yards as ornamentals around these parts. Here is a newly opened inflorescence.

I found this crazy looking insect living (or at least hanging out) inside the above flower. I have absolutely no idea what it is, but think it is really cool.

Sunday Nature Photos

Here is a spider I found living on our banana plants. I have no idea what species it belongs to, but it s very cool, I think.

Sunday Nature Photos

So, I am usually the last to publicly give any praise to myself. When I was a master's student, I was full of doubt thinking that no one would find my research at all interesting. I think it had to do with the interdisciplinary nature of my project, but also the physics envy common in ecology. So I haven't really talked up my Ph.D. research. Part of it was that I really wanted to avoid saying something that I didn't know much about, and frankly it is rude to talk about one's self. But, over the last couple of weeks, I have really taken ownership of my research. Surprisingly, things really came together in ways that both my major professor and I are really happy with. I must say that I owe much to my major prof; I've grown in a lot of ways in the last five years and much has to do with working with her. But anyway, here is the flyer I made the other day advertising my seminar. I'll wait till the publications are out before I actually talk about the science.