Welcome to Texas Wildbuds!

...a collection of Texas wildflower photos taken around the state, and mostly from Central Texas and Big Bend. 

The website is organized to show the species by color, name and places where they were taken. There are 434 identified species and varieties on the site as of October 21, 2017.

Click on the drop-down menus above to see some of the great variety of flowers the state offers. 

The objective in building this site was to display quality images of correctly identified wildflowers for others to reference, use and enjoy. A lot of care has been taken in plant identification but there are likely some mistakes. Please contact me if you find errors. 

Enjoy the photos. And be sure to check out the Colorado Wildflowers site, too!

Tom Lebsack

Above: Long Spur Columbine (Aquilegia longissima) Big Bend National Park. 

References:

Several sources for plant identification have been used, with these being the most important: 

• “Wildflowers of the Texas Hill Country” by Marshall Enquist
• “Wildflowers of Texas” by Geyata Ajilvsgi
• “Little Big Bend” by Roy Morey
• “Rare Plants of Texas” by Poole, Carr, Price and Singhurst
• USDA Plants Database
• Integrated Taxonomic Information
• Wildflowersearch.com
• Southwest Environmental Information Network
• The American Southwest
• Wildflower.org
• Shinner & Mahler's Flora of North Central Texas
• Image Archive of Central Texas Plants

Photo Equipment and Processing: 

All of the photographs were taken with digital cameras, primarily Nikon DSLRs, including D70, D200, D300S and (currently) D810. Most DSLR photos were taken with a Nikkor-Micro 70-180mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom macro lens. Oher cameras were used as well, including aim-and-shoots Canon SD650, Nikon P7000 and Sony RSX-100III, and iPhone 6 and 7 Plus.  Beginning in 2016, I've been doing focus stacking with the D810 and the 70-180mm lens, using the focussing barrel or a Kirk FR-2 focussing rail.

Most photos were taken with natural light; however, many of the close-up shots were made using a Nikon RC1 macro flash system.

Almost all photos are shot with camera RAW file format and developed and converted to JPEGs on a Macintosh computer with Lightroom and Color Efex4 Pro software. For the focus stacks I use Helicon Focus software to process the images. The processing steps consist of first identifying the plants and organizing them in Lightroom with keywords. The photos are usually cropped and exposures/contrasts adjusted before converting to JPEGs and uploaded to my website using Sandvox web development software.

Banner photo: Bluebonnets in the Llano area, courtesy of Rick Capozza, Austin.

The photographs on this site are copyrighted, but can be used with prior permission and attribution.  Please contact me to request permission or if you would like prints.