bloodroot! finally.
i have been wanting to photograph bloodroot for a coupe of years now. it is one of the first (the first?) spring ephemeral flowers to bloom in our northern woodlands. i found a few bloodroot blossoms in my yard a couple of years ago, but there were too few to sacrifice one on the altar of STILL. but i have been babying them, mostly with water and weed pulling, and now they are a healthy little community–established and spreading. so, today, at long last, i gave myself permission to nip one. alas, i present to you bloodroot. it’s rhizome bleeds when cut. and it’s single leaf clasps the flower stem (as show) until after blooming is completed, when it finally unfurls to it’s full size.
bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
undeniable
for many of us beauty is about recognizability. symmetry, balance, harmony, proportionality…but then there is the magnolia blossom. completely improbable. undeniably beautiful. i love rebels.
magnolia blossom
understated elegance
spring isn’t all flowers and blossoms. sometimes spring looks like this. tiny little leaf buds on a scrubby little shrub beside a grocery store parking lot. buds that just happens to have perfectly alternating branching all in in a single plane. remarkable.
spring buds on an identified branch
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Mary Jo – This reminds me to be watchful for the glorious REDBUD tree in my neighborhood. If you need one to photograph – it is on Cumberland Street in Shoreview – so not too far from your usual walk. Redbuds are magical nature fun. THANK YOU EVERY DAY MJ.
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a pile of gold
i have a spectacular forsythia bush in my yard. i have left it untended for a decade, and it had grown into an enormous mound, so now, when the sun hits it just right, it looks like a pile of gold. when bushes and trees grow a profusion of tiny blossom–like apple trees, lilacs, and forsythia–i struggle with how to capture that abundance for STILL. so, after ruminating for several days, i often decide on doing exactly the opposite. which is to photograph just on tiny floret on a field of white. after all, how often have you stopped to look closely at one individual forsythia blossom? i still may do that tomorrow, as i wish to add to my collection. in the meantime, this photo does quite a nice job revealing the unexpected striped centers of these diminutive flowers.
forsythia
beyond words
every once in a while i blow my own mind. much more often, nature does it for me. case in point: this egret feather.
egret feather
It’s so pristine and exquisite!
I hope, after the photo shoot, you replanted it amongst it’s pals?!
I did. And I think it will make it!