Texas ash, Dallas Fort Worth to Austin
Recently took my first trip to Texas to look for the rare Texas ash in hopes of locating natural populations suitable for seed collection in a genetic conservation project. Within two minutes of getting out the car at the Rocky Point Trail I located Texas ash trees with decent regeneration and new seed production. After walking the Rocky Point trail I headed up to Fort Worth Nature Center where I found several more healthy Texas ash trees with seed. Texas ash collections are off to a good start!
After visiting four sites around the Dallas Fort Worth area I headed down towards Austin to explore additional sites. McKinney Falls just outside of Austin was a beautiful park with a good number of Texas ash trees, some of which had seeds. Following two site explorations I headed to Barton Springs to get a break from the 98 degree air in the year round 68 degree water. Later on I visited the South Congress Street Bridge to see the bats. Supposedly a late cold snap in May sent many of the bats back to Mexico. Even with reduced numbers it was neat to experience. Before heading back to the hotel I checked out two Daniel Johnston murals in town.
After a few days in Austin I worked my back towards Fort Worth checking out yet more sites. Dinosaur Kingdom was a neat surprise with it’s blue hole swimming area and dinosaur tracks in the river. Unfortunately the Texas ash seed here was not producing much seed in 2018.
