We’re running low again, and if you have some good photos, send ’em on. Thanks!
Today’s photos come from Rik Gern of Austin, Texas. Rik’s captions are indented and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Last spring I threw a fistful of wildflower seeds out my back door and was richly rewarded for the effort. One species of flower that popped up was Indian blanket (Gaillardia pulchella).
Indian blanket is a native plant and a smaller cousin to the Sunflower. It can be seen in fields and by the roadside all thru the spring and early summer.
This batch of pictures is a series of portraits of the flower heads, sequenced so as to illustrate the progression from bud, to flower, to spent and desiccated flower heads.
Hairy sepals form a spiky fist to protect the incipient flower:
As the bud opens and the flower begins to bloom you can see the disc flowers in the center and the ray flowers extending outward:
Indian blankets in full bloom:
This plant was growing sideways, affording a nice “backstage” view:
What would a wildflower be without an insect guest?:
The beginning of the end. The ray flowers have dropped off, but it looks like there is still some life left in the disc flowers:
The flowers have gone, but some color still remains:
Finally, a ghostly husk is all that remains of the flower that once was. The party is over, but hopefully there was enough pollination and seed dispersal for the descendants to make an appearance next year:
Beautifully done. Thank you.
I just loved this! Thank you.
This was great, thanks! I way too often quit paying attention to flowering plants after the peak of bloom has passed. What you have done here is what anyone worthy of the “naturalist” label should be doing more often.
What a nice idea for a photo sequence! Lovely. Thank you.
Thanks for this delightful series.
Lovely to follow the sequence.
Beautiful at every stage. A wonderful series of photos.
Nice!
Gaillardias are great!
Gorgeous sequence of photos! Thanks for sharing these!
Nice!
Amen to all these comments. I love to photograph flowers but never have had the focus to follow through and take photos at each stage. Thank you.
These are great.
Very nice!
You said it’s cousin to the sunflower. We grew a sunflower on our balcony this summer, and watched it through the stages you indicated (I may have a few pictures I can send in). I’m not sure only about the seed dispersal part, though, as the goldfinches ate, as far as I can tell, every seed, methodically working their way down from the top of the flower. So much natural happiness just watching them sit on top of the flower, and pick at the seeds!