Smallest butterfly of North America is easily overlooked

The smallest butterfly of North America loves the glasswort that lines the road leading to the Brownwood Pavilion at Baytown Nature Center.

The Western Pygmy Blue butterflies are looking for places to lay eggs and checking out the wildflowers.

Walk along the road and the little butterflies about the size of your smallest fingernail will flutter along.

Western Pygmy Blues are weak fliers that stay close to the ground. Once they land, their coppery wings are hard to spot.

The little Western Pygmy Blues are abundant. Most people just don't notice them.

Peek-a-boo with a flighty subject.

The flower pose by a notched-wing tiny Texas butterfly.

Glasswort puts on its fall display

Along the road to Brownwood Pavilion at Baytown Nature Center.

 Leaf peepers, look down. The glasswort is gorgeous this year.

For beautiful fall colors you can't beat glasswort, which is found in the sandy soil of salt marshes, wetlands and beaches.

Rather than leaves, it is the fleshy, succulent stems that are changing from bright greens to shades of orange and red.

Miniature forest.

Europeans gave the plant its name 400 to 500 years ago when they discovered they could burn the stems for glassmaking. They would use the ash combined with sand to make crude glass. According to local legend, Germans settling in Texas brought the glassmaking technique with them.

Also, some say it sounds like you are stepping on broken glass when you walk on a bed of glasswort. I can't vouch for that sound. I was in a nature center and stayed on the trail. Plus, it just seems rude to step on plants.

That hand is for scale only. No glasswort was hurt for this photo

Glasswort's fiery colors.

 Glasswort stems are edible. Most often the new green stems are used in fresh salads or pickled.

At BNC, field trippers often are given a broken stem to taste.  Yep, glasswort tastes salty. Or is that just the coyote-pee flavoring?