For all my readers who live in the Seguin area, I have a question. Have you noticed how many fields and roadsides are absolutely covered with this billowy, tall, bushy yellow flower?
It is called the bastard cabbage (Rapistrum rugosum). I don't remember seeing such a profusion of this particular wildflower, but I have enjoyed taking pictures of it. I love the simplicity of the lemon yellow flowers with their spindly and nubby green stalks against the blue, blue sky. In order to get this type of shot, I literally have to lay on the ground on my belly and set the camera on the dirt and point it upwards just right.
If I just kneel, as I did for the two next pictures, and if I get pretty close to the blooms, I can get them in sharp focus, and get a very blurred, Monet type of backdrop of bluebonnets or bluebonnets mixed with Indian paintbrushes.
What I did not realize, until I did a little research to identify the wildflower, is that it is so invasive a species that it is crowding out almost all other wildflowers. If it is not brought under some sort of control, it will crowd out all our precious bluebonnets in the near future. Evidence of it's success in overtaking its habitat is the numerous fields in the area that are blanketed in a thick cover of the plant.
It seems it's nickname of bastard cabbage is very appropriate.
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