Mission: Everything is Anemone

Hello Round Rock naturalists! This is your first nature challenge.

1. Make an observation of an anemone
   In order to make your anemone observation ID-able, get at least two features—a shot of the stem(technically it's a scape) where you can see and a shot of the basal leaves - see here for a better explanation
   When you have done this, post a comment on this post tagging me @arnanthescout saying "I found an anemone!"

2. Jackpot: Find the rare Edward's Plateau Anemone
   Most anemones around here are the Tenpetal Anemone, A. berlandieri. However, there are a select few species that occur around here which are much harder to find... most likely the Edward's Plateau Anemone, Anemone edwardsiana

The main difference is that this anemone can have multiple flowers growing out of the same scape, coming out from the bracts.
This anemone is endemic to Texas (occurs here and nowhere else), and grows in limestone outcrops around the Edward's Plateau, west of Round Rock. If you believe you have found this species, post it as an observation, and then comment below to tell me. It's a needle in a haystack, don't expect to find it easily ;)
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For more details on the 5 species of anemone here, and how to ID/take pictures of them, check out this journal post!

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• BONUS: Find a Dwarf Verbena
  Dwarf Verbena (Glandularia pumila), is similar to the more common Prairie Verbena/Dakota Mock Vervain, (Glandularia bipinnatifida). However, the leaves of Dwarf Verbena are much less dissected than that of Dakota Mock Vervain, and the flowers are in smaller clusters:

While Dwarf Verbena is much less common than Dakota Mock Vervain, it blooms earlier, peaking right around March, while Dakota Mock Vervain has yet to start blooming en masse. Miss it and you'll probably have to catch it next year!
If you think you have found this plant, post it as an observation and comment below.

• Make sure your photos are recording location and time... that metadata will come in handy
• Cover the plant with shade (using your shadow or a hat) so that the plant doesn't look like this. All full sun or all shade are best—try to make things visible and not too "contrasted" as I call it.
• Usually, when tapping on a phone screen, the auto-focus will put that point in focus... and also make that part medium brightness, changing up the brightness of the screen. Keep that in mind.
• If you have trouble focusing, you can put your hand behind the part you want in focus to help the camera's auto-focus focus on your hand, and thus the plant you are taking a photo of.
• Manually focusing the camera is life-changing. Android's default camera has an option for manual focus in its manual mode, which can be very useful. Apple's default camera does not, but there may be other camera apps that can.
• It's usually better to have too many photos than not enough... you can delete them later.

• If you have any problems with uploading photos/observations, contact me on Remind or message on iNat ;)
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  IMPORTANT: NO STEALING OF IMAGES THAT DO NOT BELONG TO YOU! This is not only cheating, but also breaks the community's trust in you as a user and harms iNaturalist integrity as a tool for citizen science. This is no place to be idiotic... be an honorable person ;)

Posted on March 17, 2022 04:09 PM by arnanthescout