(Remember that clicking on any  thumbnail image will bring up a larger image)

There was an abundance of Heliotropium procumbens (Fourspike Heliotrope--Boraginaceae).  Members of this family are notoriously difficult to key--generic and specific identification often require examining mature fruit under high magnification and/or peering into the tiny flower to examine the appendages in the throat-- so we were glad we recognized it as a Heliotrope and could begin there.  The inflorescence is a scorpioid cyme that unrolls as the flowers open.  In the middle image, you can see the developing nutlets (cocci) held in the calyces of the spent flowers.

We did not get a good photo of the Fiddle Dock (Rumex pulcher--Polygonaceae) plants, but look at these fruits!  Each achene is surrounded by valves, the dry remains of the perianth.  Fiddle Dock has valves with very ornate, toothy margins, and each valve has a large, white bump or tubercle.  This photo was taken with great magnification.  The valves are about 3 mm long.  Look for dock plants in weedy, wet ditches and other moist places.

The next two plants were growing intermixed and we really had to get right down in them to see that they were different.  Both had very tiny (about 3 mm) purplish flowers and fuzzy foliage.  We are glad the photos came out, because neither is particularly gorgeous or character-revealing as a pressed specimen.

The first, Slimpod Nama (Nama stenocarpum) is a member of the Hydrophyllaceae or Waterleaf Family.  It has the typical corolla of five fused petals.  The five stamens are visible inside.  It is more or less unique among species of Nama in Texas in having the sepals fused  up to about half their length.

Dwarf  or Wild Petunia (Calibrachoa parviflora--Solanaceae) was the second.  It used to be placed in Petunia but has been moved.  It looks just like garden petunias except for the size.  The corolla is pleated before it fully expands.

Another low, hairy, somewhat cryptic plant growing on the wet mud was Glinus radiatus--Aizoaceae.  This introduced weed does not seem to have a common name in Texas, although elsewhere it is known as Spreading Sweetjuice.  The open flowers were white to pale pink, but they closed in the collecting bag and refused to open for the macro camera setup later on.  That's a fingertip in the photo.  Poking about in miniature plants like this is often called belly botany.

After walking much of the length of Nolton Tank, we crossed above the pool and explored the western edge and the pasture and brushland beyond it.  Here we found some more tiny plants.

This is Manystem Evax (Evax verna--Asteraceae.)  It's hard to see this as a member of the daisy family, but it is.  The flowers are quite small and are borne a few to a head at the ends of the branches.  About a dozen heads are visible in the image.  The entire plant is covered with a soft grayish-white wool.  Keying to species in Evax may mean looking at the microscopic (less than 1 mm long) achenes to see whether they're oval or biconvex (lens-shaped) in cross-section.

The smallest-flowered member of the Malvaceae--Mallow Family that we found was Sida abutifolia--Spreading Sida.  It has tiny yellow flowers that nonetheless bear the monadelphous (united by the filaments ) stamens typical of the family.  This species has very delicate stems and trails rather than standing upright.

Not everything around Nolton Tank was fit only for Liliputians.  The Yellow Prickly Poppy (Argemone mexicana--Papaveraceae) can reach about 1 meter in height.  The only parts of this plant that are not prickly are the roots, the petals, and the stamens.  The stems, leaves, sepals, and fruit are all mightily unpleasant to handle.  The leaves are glaucous (covered with a whitish wax) and the sap is a bright yellow latex.  Photogenic but uncooperative in the extreme, this plant drops all its petals when it its picked.

Ratany (Krameria lanceolata--Krameriaceae) is much friendlier.  The pinkish-maroon flowers look a bit like orchids, but this plant is a dicot.  It is found in much of Texas, especially where the soil is sandy.  Other species in Texas are shrubby, but this one tends to trail through the grasses.

Can you tell what this is?  This field trip contains many plants in the Euphorbiaceae--Spurge Family, but this one looks least like the others.  It is Round Copperleaf--Acalypha monostachya.  The plants come from woody rootstocks and are either male or female (shown here)  The flowers have no corolla, but the styles of the female flowers are red and can be eye-catching.  The little round bracts and  leaves are shallowly toothed, in contrast to the very similiar Acalypha radians, which has lobed leaves and is confusingly also called Round Copperleaf.

Frog-fruit (Phyla nodiflora--Verbenaceae) is common on the ranch.  The little white flowers are grouped into a spike that elongates as the flowers mature and set seed.  (For some reason, the camera tends to hate Phyla.  We suspect, from our collection of blurry images, that  it does not know where to focus.) Species of Phyla are often found in lawns, along roads, and in other disturbed or weedy areas.  It is native and seldom a true pest, though.

Spreading Hedge Parsley (Torilis arvensis--Apiaceae), on the other hand, is an introduced nightmare.  It is abundant and increasing in much Texas.  The lacy white umbels may be pretty, but the fruits are covered with tiny hooked bristles that cling mercilessly to socks, shoes, fur, etc.  It's the botanical equivalent of the hook side of  Velcro.  It's from the Old World, and they can have it back.

This is Physalis cinerascens var. cinerascens (Ground Chery--Solanaceae.)  This plant is found throughout Texas.  The purple-marked, yellow flower is followed by a green to purplish berry enclosed in the inflated, balloon- or lantern-like calyx.  Both Chinese Lanterns and the Tomatillos used in Mexican food are in Physalis.

Isn't this a gorgeous shade of blue-purple?  Salvia texana (Lamiaceae) is found in the western 2/3 of the state, but for all its broad distribution, it doesn't seem to have a common name.  It shows the bilabiate corolla typical of the mint family.  (This image is looking down on the flower from above; the broad lip would usually stick out horizontally.

Two other purple flowers round out our tour of the Nolton Tank area.  Both are in the Acanthaceae, whose members usually have slightly to strongly bilaterally-symmetric (zygomorphic) corollas and either 2 or 4 stamens. The fruit usually  has small projections within that work like catapults to fling the seeds at maturity.

Dyschoriste linearis  (left) has the not-very-imaginative common name Narrowleaf Dyschoriste.  Note the markings on the corolla.  They will serve to guide pollinators to the center of the flower.  The plant on the right  is Ruellia (Ruellia nudiflora.)  Its flower is very like that of Dyschoriste but lacks the markings.  The pollinator seems to have found the mark anyway.   Ruellia  leaves are typically broader than those of Dyschoriste.