A Rare Beauty

After two continuous rainy days yesterday the Sun peeped through the cloud not much but enough to enjoy the day. we decided to drive  to the historic Chapel Hill to see the princess. The drive was very pleasant with wild flowers  and ranches on both sides of the scenic highway and all the credit goes to lady Bird Johnson who encouraged  the beautification of the Texas highway with native plants.   As we approached Brenham, both sides of the road was full with cars and people were taking picture with their families &  pets.

 In early spring between mid march to  mid April the hills and the meadows are painted with a dainty little plant of coastal  and southern Texas with sheets of  royal blue sunbonnet shaped flowers. Lupinus texenis, the blue bonnet just over 12 inches when they raise their beautiful  violate-blue heads,  then there is no doubt that Spring is  at the corner. Texas bluebonnet has carried a strange love affair with its people than any other state flowers.  Texans love them so much that they dovated a large part of their lives to protecting and proliferating the beauty.heads  From the far distance one can notice how  the spring breeze rattles the pretty flowers accompanied with the red-orange Indian painbrush.. Because  of its unusal beauty it has steeped into  a myth that  during a long painful drought the chief of the tribe asked everyone to sacrifice an important possession to the  Great Spirit but  none would.A young Native American girl named ” She-Who- Is-Alone” who stepped  forward  and give her beloved doll -a gift from her lost parents as a sacrifice. And the rain finally fall with it sprouted the field with the stunning, beautiful bluebonnet. It’s  fragrance is intoxicating as some delicate  essence of  the mediterranean  shore .as excellent as symphonic passage is to music.According to the historian Jack  Maguine ” The bluebonnet is to Texas what the Shamrocks is to Ireland, the Cherry blossom to Japan, the Lily to France, Rose to England and Tulip to Holand.”

In 1901 Texas legislature  among heavy argument over  the selection of Texas state flowers cotton, cactus , the National Society of Colonial Dames of America won that day. The selection was “Lupious Subcarnoseus” known as buffalo clover or bluebonnet..” But to some Texans  Lupinus textenis the showier, bolder blue beauty which covers most of the Texas in early Spring. So , in 1971 the legislature  handled  the dilemma by adding the species together and lumped into one state flower. Our drive was worth to Brenham and FM 1955 north of the Historic Chapel Hill. Every year on April 12 & 13  there is the bluebonnet festival which brings visitors from all over the places.

The home of the blue bonnet -the North America Prarie wild flowers are the jewels of public land. Visitors from outside and locals spill  into the fields heedless of snakes, bees,  fire ants even barbed wires but they tread gently and lightly .  Bluebonnet, the beautiful princess is simply one’s private entrance into the memory.

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