Rare wildflower found in San Antonio parks proposed for endangered list
Wendy Leonard remembers the first time she discovered the bracted twistflower at Rancho Diana, a City of San Antonio-owned preserve in northwest Bexar County that’s not open to the public.
“The whole hillside was just lavender blue, blowing in the wind,” said Leonard, a nature preserve officer with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. “It was gorgeous.”
The tall purple wildflower, a member of the mustard family whose distant cousins include broccoli and cabbage, once thrived across much of the Hill Country. But with its prime habitat now mostly located along the Interstate 35 corridor between San Antonio and Austin, the twistflower is threatened by rapid development, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Hungry white-tailed deer and other herbivores also threaten the species, along with hikers and mountain bikers venturing off-trail on the few public lands where it’s been found growing in recent years.
Read more: https://sanantonioreport.org/rare-wildflower-san-antonio-parks-proposed-endangered/
The bracted twistflower, which once thrived across much of the Hill Country, is now threatened by rapid development, says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has proposed listing it as “threatened” on the federal endangered species list. Credit: Courtesy / Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center