micro

this photo is quite magnified. these prairie stems, each about 24 inches tall, caught my eye because the tiny flowers looked like delicate beadwork when backlit on my walk today. it wasn’t until i photographed them and pulled the image onto my imac that i saw that each of those beads was an intricately detailed tiny little flower with interesting striped coloration. each flower is about the size of a sesame seed.  so those flowers are barely visible to the eye, and certainly not visible to my 55 year old eyes. what fun to pull it up on my 28 inch screen and see a whole floral world in a grain of sand.

unidentified prairie stems in winter

ps. i would love to know what plant this is. anyone?