The Lost Pines

For the first time since the great fires of 2011, we ventured east to the Lost Pines and Bastrop State Park. What was once a land of towering green pines, blooming white dogwood trees, ferns and forest floors covered with pine needles is no more. This ancient grove of loblolly pines, separated far from its nearest neighbors, has been forever altered by the fires.

And though the fires were tragic, there is beauty to behold. New plants are growing forth in ground that is unencumbered by the deep shade of the acidic pines. A few woodpeckers call. Blue and red Eastern bluebirds flitted through black branches, and pine warblers snuck their way past treet trunks and falling, dead limbs.

A post-fire landscape is quite otherworldly, but also beautiful in its resilience.

Small tufts of grasses and sedges strike a surprisingly modern pose with this beautiful red plant. (I have no idea what this is. Anyone?)

It's important to wear sunny pants...

Much of the understory is laying itself out like a Piet Oudolf garden in winter, all texture and shades of tan.

Pokeweed is quite dominant, much of it with bright red stalks and drooping with berries.

Switchgrass and rattlesnake master (which I've never seen in the wild in Texas) are filling in along dry and wet streambanks, along with little bluestem and Indiangrass.

This clumping grass is beautiful, with pom-pom like tufts of grasses bursting forth from its main body. Is this a native species?

I think this is a burnt out yucca, all of its fine internal fibers exposed and waving across the ground, as if a pale haired Tolkien elf suddenly vanished into the ground, leaving behind its hair.

The beautiful golden wood from an oak tree whose bark had been peeled away by the charring fire.

And meadows of grasses now growing where none grew before...