Part of this morning was spent visiting the Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge (that’s Las Vegas, New Mexico rather than the more famous city). It was rather hot and we were rather late so we didn’t see very much wildlife but I did stumble upon this amazing seed head. It looked like an enormous dandelion (the head was about 4 inches across) but a bit of googling informed me that it’s the head of a salsify plant. Interestingly enough, the plant has an edible root a bit like a carrot or parsnip and, back in the 1500s, it was thought to be effective in curing plague.
For the technically inclined...