Texas Gardening: Texas Native Plant Pictures by color ( Purple ), 1 by htop

htop wrote:
Globe Amaranth, Gomphrena (Gomphrena globosa), Amaranthaceae Family, naturalized, annual, blooms late summer through fall

Globe amaranth, native to Panama and Guatemala, has attained naturalized status in Texas. Bloom colors may be white, pink, red, lavender or purple. They are composed of stiff, colorful and papery bracts which are very flashy. The inconspicuous individual flowers within the flowerheads are extremely small, but there are many of them.I found that these perform better in poor soil, no fertilizer and regular supplemental water in hot weather. Mulching in hot climates helps also. Until I discovered this, the plants just withered, turned white and died.

For more information, see its entry in the PlantFiles:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/222/index.html

A view of globe amaranth and a butterfly with sunlight providing backlighting taken with my old camera. The plants have reached their peak and are starting to decline when I took the photo 2 years ago. The colored part of the heads are bracts. The blooms are tiny and white. I saw 8 different kinds of butterflies having a block party here. The color of the blooms was impossible for me to capture accurately with my digital camera and they seem to be one of the most difficult blooms for me to capture accurately.