Buttercup

About the Buttercup

Every Texan calls it a buttercup, though botanically it is the pink evening primrose - acres of soft pink cups with yellow throats that carpet roadsides right as the bluebonnets fade. Push your nose into one and you come away dusted yellow, which is exactly how generations of Texas kids have played the buttercup game.

The tissue-paper flowers open in the evening in the southern part of its range - hence the name - but our populations mostly open at dawn, each bloom lasting a day or two. The petals are veined in deeper pink, and a colony in full bloom will hum with small native bees all morning while sphinx moths work the edges at dusk.

It is a tough, spreading perennial that thrives on neglect: mowed roadsides, vacant lots, and thin caliche all suit it. Gardeners either love it or fight it, because once established it wanders wherever it pleases.

For the camera, get low. A buttercup colony shot at ground level, with the sun coming through those translucent petals, glows in a way few Texas wildflowers can match.