This Texas lantana blooms until frost, and in a cold winter, appears frozen dead, so can be cut back. However, in the spring the plant grows from the roots and is bigger every year. It survives our blistering summers and flowers during all the hot weather.

The Southern Red Oak lines some neighborhoods, and in late fall the leaves are a wonderful orange and red, announcing fall in Houston! Also, large acorns provide food for the critters in the trees and ground. Then in mid-winter, the leaves fall and the branches are bare until late spring.

The American Beautyberry shows off purple berries in the fall. After the leaves are shed, the berries remain on the bush, unless some creature eats them first. In our yards, the bush takes a long time to develop. This photo is an American Beautyberry in the Sam Houston National Forest. 

If you have an iPhone, there are several plant identification apps, and the native photos also do plant identification. In Photos, display one photo of a plant and swipe up, then click Look Up – Plant. And the plant is identified! This is not as accurate as a skilled human, so verify the identification by looking it up another way, too. We learned about several other plant identification apps in the Bay Area Zoom meeting on November 16, 2022.