a random sampling of roadside pleasures

July already? 

Gone are the days when I could while away the hours on a mere trip to the mailbox a quarter mile away, and get 200 shots in. For lo, I am gainfully employed and whatnot, and damn if it doesn't eat in to the esoteric pursuits. Translation: oh right, the Mighty Lumix! Let's go out into the world with it, shall we?

The milkweed is just starting to pop.

This summer, I've let a handful of milkweed get established in the lawn because, why not? We got mouths to feed. Specifically, this one:



I spotted this monarch caterpillar a couple of days ago but couldn't find him (her?) (it?) today. Must be around somewhere.

Grass is always good for a close-up. I don't know what kind. The tall kind. Sorta like timothy grass, but we have that, and it hasn't gotten this far along yet.

Purple-flowering raspberry. I'm just going to go on a binge here, don't mind me. We'll start with the beginning:

Some say beauty fades with youth, but I'm not so sure...the petals may be gone, but this is life unfolding before your very eyes...

Ah, wasn't that fun? Soon that'll ripen into the the sweetest little open-cupped raspberry you can imagine. Yum.

Here, have a fly.

And now, a final dose of purple, courtesy of the bittersweet nightshade flower...

OK, time to call it a night.

the tiniest flowers are sometimes the most ornate

when is white campion not white campion?

when it’s pink.

the rhododendron flowers are all done. a few forlorn bees buzz around, making sure they haven’t missed anything.

on the side of the road, a smattering of asiatic dayflowers.

I’d wade into the weeds more, but the poison ivy threatens:

remember deertongue, from the other day? here’s how those wriggly spermies break free of the stalk:

let’s have another look at those teensy flowers:

fancy magenta headdress (stigma?)

 

...dangling little slippered feet (anthers?)

just so we’re clear about this, that whole structure takes up less than half the length of my index finger’s nail.

this is the last of the golden alexander that’s still golden...

 

most of it looks like this by now:

 

and now for today’s new (to me) species...drumroll please...

wild garlic!

the jack-in-the-pulpit report: still green.

...whereas the false solomon’s seal berries are partway to red. they don’t start off bright green like the jacks – more of a pale greeny yellow, followed by rusty speckling, like so:

 

some sort of panic grass. I am loathe to speculate on species – I’m not even completely sure it’s a panic grass.

OK, time to suck down some of the library books that have all been released from the purgatory of On Hold to my hot little hands, at the same time. Ready – set – go!

sunday ramblings

 

Fall’s definitely on its way. The milkweed pods are nowhere near opening up, but they are losing their green.

july 24

september 16

Bittersweet nightshade berries are so translucent, that you can make out the seeds inside them.

Jewelweed – aka “touch me not” – flower. Loving the texture.

 

cattails lose all dignity when they go to seed.

 

I was aiming for the flowers of the japanese knotweed, but found this wasp instead.

And now, for the jester’s hat of the campion’s seedhead:

there are goodies to behold inside.

it took me a few tries to focus on the mysteries within.

oooohhhh! another whole little world in there! I explored all this last september, too – you can see that here.

time-lapse of campion, and exploding jewelweed

It’s time for one of my famed time-lapse sequences, this time of white campion (Lychnis alba).
Step 1: The Flower.
Hello, flower! And hello, little spider lurking in the middle there! (Hint: it’s green. You can see two legs.)

Step 2: Things fall off The petals fall off, leaving the stamens to wave around indolently. All the action is now happening in the bulging ovary.

Step 3: More things fall off
The stamens fall off, and the extraneous membrane (‘m sure there’s a botanically accurate name for it around here somewhere…) around the ovary begins to rot, dry up, and fall off as well.

Ooooh, check that out. Yet another example of the brilliance of that flower that mimics Playtex tampon applicators.

Step 4: POP!  Seeds! Seeds! Seeds!
Thus unencumbered, the tip of the pod bursts open along the star-pattern on its end:

Shall we take a look inside?

Look at those amazing little seeds! I suspect that texture functions like velcro, because that one on the end is stuck there. That pod is CHOCK FULL of those little seeds. I tried like hell to get a good, in-focus shot, without much luck. Here are some outtakes:

Speaking of POP, it is now time to reveal the joy that is jewelweed seeds, which explode when you touch them. Hence the other common name of “touch-me-not”. (Which is super-ironic, because apparently you can use jewelweed as a salve against poison ivy.)
The jewelweed around our house is like a pregnant woman four months along. You can tell she’s pregnant  - MAYBE - if you know her well, and know what you’re looking for. In other words, the flowers are fertilized, but progress is discreetly hidden deep within the flower.  Out in Whitingham, though – higher elevation, shorter growing season - the jewelweed is more like a six- to nine-month pregnant woman. I’m just gonna ride this analogy now that I’ve started it.
We’ll start with one that still has its petals on. Hm, I do believe this flower has been fertilized!

See how there’s some some green something-something happening behind the frilly bits?
Cut to the rest of the last trimester (I warned you, I was going to ride this analogy for all it was worth…) At some point, all the orange petal material falls away – I have yet to see that in part-way mode; I’ve only seen All On, versus All Fallen Off.
And here we go with the big bellied girls. Once the petals are dispensed with, additional seed development seems to occur, because I’ve seen these seed pods at varying levels of Fatness. (To be truly thorough, I’d follow a few specimens over a few days, but I had one day with these particular babies – I’ll have to keep an eye out on the ones closer to home.)

Some are skinny…	…and some are fat.

I tried and failed to film what happens when you touch a fat jewelweed pod. I can show you the results, though:

Sproing-oing-oing-oing-oing!
The seeds fly out, and the skin holding them in – the pod, I guess – is all post-explosion curly.

Fannnn-tastic.