things just keep unfolding

Just what you’ve been waiting for: four days in the lives of two brown-eyed susans (june 11 – june 14). We’ll start with Baby.

now watch this – sun! the petals suddenly get a little glow to them.

 

and now, for Big Sis:

 

nearby, a gigantic moth was visiting a Cat’s Ear (Hypochoeris radicata).

 

and now, for some half-baked anemone:

spiderworts barfing purple

bluets: so ethereal. they just can’t help themselves.

 

purple-flowering raspberry

Even the plants are better organized than I am

Take the lilac: it’s made and released seeds…

“Laaaaaah!”


…and they’ve already made their buds for next year.

Rhododendron: same story. As for me? I haven’t even put away my summer T-shirts yet.
I get complimented occasionally by my slavishly devoted blog fans for how Observant I am, How Great that I Notice All the Beauty in the Ordinary World Around Me.  Explain to me then how I managed to miss this entire huge shrub, right next to the Maybe Arrowwood Maybe Hydrangea shrub.

Huhhhh...? Anybody have any suggestions? It’s a shrub with opposite leaves. That’s all I got.


Deformed magnolia buds are turning red. Did you see the one where I dissected these in the hopes that they were insect galls? Turns out they were growing seeds. Ooops. Sorry.
And now for the wildflower report.

Starflower. The evergreen leaves are vinca – which, incidentally, are still throwing off purple flowers.

Miterwort. 
Yeah, I know, not as beautiful as you were hoping for, huh? It’s fall, people! Here’s what miterwort looks like when it’s flowering. And here are its positively cute-alicious seeds.
OK, one last bit of news. The other day’s fall dandelion is actually Cat’s Ear (Hypochoeris radicata). Thanks, Arianna, for figuring that out for me!

Mmmm, sweet. Relish this color, cause it’s all gonna fade soon…
The tie-breaking indicator? Fuzzy leaves.


Charlie greets his namesake flower.

Now we are just haggling over the price.

Scrounging for floral color here.

Pale smartweed: it tiny.


Fall dandelion: arrives late to the party, but brings awesomeness. [Editor's note: I lied. It's Cat's Ear. Still awesome, though.]


Common evening primrose.


Ditto, having gone to seed.
Speaking of going to seed, remember the gentian that I was worried about earlier? No? Here, I’ll remind you. Here’s the time-lapse sequence:

August 20: delicious	August 31: sheer voluptuousness
September 16: going over the hill	September 24: yuck

I was worried about these because they seemed to be moldering away without having had a chance to open up. Turns out this is most likely Gentiana clausa – aka, “closed gentian”. How they manage to do their business is anyone’s guess. Presumably small intrepid insects are involved. At any rate, here’s what it looks like as of today:

Those flowers are PACKED with seeds; to wit:


Flowers that rely on windborne dispersal are going great gang-busters, which kinda makes sense, since a lot of birds have packed up and left for the season. Now, that’s the sort of reckless statement that deserves actual study to back it up. I’ll put it on the list for next year, I suppose. At any rate, here are a few of my favorites from today:

Tall anemone (thimbleweed). My head is exploding!


Rats, I’m not sure what this is.


Milkweed: proof that starting to lose your mind can be beautiful.
And now, for more milkweed pørn*.



*Yes, I just spent five minutes figuring out how to make a slashed zero, rather than spell it out, since that word generates a lot of blog traffic: users the world over end up here, looking for --- oh, nasty stuff. Imagine their surprise when they find me, instead. I could keep using That Word to up my ranking in Nature Blog Network, but that would make me a whore**.
**Ooops.