Mountain Pink

Description:

Low, upright, annual. Blooms in mounds of pink, 5 lobed flowers on rocky limestone or gravelly soils.

Habitat:

Limestone spillway of Belton Lake.

Notes:

Zeltnera beyrichii, commonly known as mountain pink, quinine weed or rock centaury, is an annual that blooms from late spring to early fall. Used as a medicinal plant by pioneers, the flowers were dried and used to reduce fevers. You might also call the mountain pink the "double-take plant"! Seeing what look like perfect little pink bouquets growing on the sunniest bare hard soil or rock, just as the first heat of the central Texas summer begins, it is hard to believe that someone didn't just put them there to fool you. Their appearance is the harbinger of hot weather to come. Plant Resource Center, U. T. Austin