Today we have some lovely wildflowers sent from Florida by photographer Thomas Webber (see his first installment here). His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. The photos are largely stacked, and if you need that information, just ask me. Oh, and if you have time and good photos, send them to me over the holidays.
Here are some more wildflowers I’ve found in the open tall-pine woods of north-central Florida in late summer and fall of this year. I think I’ve identified them all correctly to genus, and most to species, but I’ve put the qualifier “cf.” before some of the species epithets I’m less sure of. I invite corrections.
Wild buckwheat, Eriogonum tomentosum. Individual flowers 5 mm:
Eryngo, Eryngium cf. aromaticum. 1.25 cm:
False foxglove, Agalinis cf. filifolia. 2.5 cm. These are parasites of a sort. Their roots penetrate the roots of other plants and extract nutrients from them:
False foxglove is a favorite larval host for buckeye butterflies, Junonia coenia. This buckeye caterpillar appears to be chewing on the base of the flower bud:
Elliott’s aster, Symphyotrichum elliottii. 3.5 cm. These flowers attract more insects than any others I’ve seen in these woods. Long-tailed skipper (Urbanus proteus) and Gulf fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) butterflies, and bees of at least two species, were always in view at one dense clump about six feet high and 20 feet long. Several times while trying to take this picture I had to wait until bees stopped making the flowers bounce:
Hempvine, Mikania cf. scandens. 4 cm. In the previous set of photos I showed one of these just starting to open up. This is what they look like when they’ve spread out:
False dragonhead, Physostegia purpurea. 1.5 cm across the mouth:
Sea myrtle, Baccharis halimifolia. Individual tassels 1.5 cm long:
Fourpetal St. Johnswort, Hypericum tetrapetalum. 1.5 cm:
Camphorweed, Pluchea cf. odorata. Individual flowers 4 mm:
Honeycombhead, Balduina angustifolia. 4 cm:
Chaffhead, Carphephorus corymbosus. 7 cm. These tangles emerge from the grassy understory on stalks two to three feet high, and in a few places are common enough to form little violet forests. This one was so top heavy it was just about falling over:
Snakeroot, Ageratina jucunda. Individual flowers 5 mm:
Gorgeous!! Thanks for sending.
Beautiful flowers! It’s really nice to have mainly black backgrounds for these. Did you use a rather small aperture for the camera to get that?
Right. I usually use 5.6, which is also the sharpest aperture on my lens (Sigma 70mm 2.8 EX macro). I prefer to shoot early on overcast mornings, and I try to aim into a dark place. When I have the rising sun behind me and the overcast diffuses the light, the flowers can take on a mild glow that I like. In editing I often boost the black level and shadows a bit, and that together with the shallow depth of field can help the flowers stand out from the background. Tom.
Yes, this is what struck me most too. Thanks for the explanation. I usually have trouble finding dark backgrounds (I’m probably not out early enough!) (I assumed it was mostly done in SW afterwards.)
Well done. The lighting is lovely. F/5.6 would still give a very short DOF at this focal distance, as you note.
Beautiful pictures.
Wow. These are awesome! Stacking is the greatest advance in photography since the invention of light.
Surreally, wondrously, “better than real life” beautiful!!
These are simply breathtaking! I hope you send more-
Thanks!
Especially the St. Johnswort.
Gorgeous
Very nice. Thanks.
Beautiful pix, stunning in their simplicity.
Beautiful flowers.
Makes me think of Joey Santone and how he appreciates and enthusiastically describes the parts of a flower on his YouTube channel (crimepaysbutbotanydoesn’t)
Beautiful flowers and beautiful pix. Thanks!