When fall comes, the eye is drawn to the bright, colorful leaves so it is easy to overlook the fall flowers, especially if tiny ones. I was surprised to see the Forget-Me-Nots still blooming in October when I had photographed them in June, but there they were, along the stream bed displaying their blue, below a colorful hillside of autumn foliage.
The Forget-Me-Not, a tiny bright sky blue flower with a white ring and yellow center, was chosen as Alaska State Flower in 1949.
The landscape turns to red, orange, yellow and brown in the fall with turning of the leaves, but if you look down while out leaf peeping, you might spot some purple too like this aster.
There are over 120 species of the genus aster found in the United States and are primarily known for their fall flowering. The late blooming flower provide nectar for the butterflies, bees and other insects. In the winter, the heads provide seeds for tree sparrows, grouse, goldfinches and chipmunks. But then my chipmunks just eat out of the bird feeder.
Since the sun came back out after two cloudy days, I figured a bright cheerful flower picture was needed to end the work week. The flowers were still a little damp from the passing rain shower but they glistened in the sunlight once the sky cleared.
After several rain showers this afternoon, the sun peeked out for a few moments this evening and flowers glowed from their dampness. The horse received a needed bath too as the birds like to sit on it. (Course the horse doesn’t complain, doesn’t fuss, doesn’t need feeding, doesn’t make messes and doesn’t break the fence which is better than the rest of my critters.)
Normally I wouldn’t post two flower pictures back to back and I was saving this one for a friend’s birthday since it looks like a horn to announce the birthday. But since it’s already tomorrow in Australia, and therefore already her birthday, I will post it today.
This trumpet-like flower is the Spotted Touch-me-not. The name touch-me-not comes from this plants unique way of seed dispersal. The seed capsule when it is touched explodes, sending its seeds up to 4 feet away.
The Spotted Touch-me-not is a high reward flower, which when insects consume the nectar of the touch-me-not are getting more energy than they would at another flower. In some cases insects such as bumble bees will feed on the nectar of low reward plants on very warm days when they don’t need as much energy, and save the high reward flowers, like the touch-me-not for cooler times.
But that’s enough rambling about the flower and it’s time to say Happy Birthday to my friend on the other side of the world and I hope you have a wonderful day!
The late summer flowers can be bright and cheery like the spring flowers since the summer flowers are not all just the whites, yellows and oranges but purples and pinks also shine. These phlox shined so much that I spotted them deep in the wild raspberry briars, standing tall and waving gently in the breeze so I would notice them. They apparently blew in since I didn’t plant any and I sure wouldn’t have planted them in the briars. I ended up mowing a path through the briars just to get close enough to take their picture.
Phlox, originating mostly in North America, belongs to a genus of 67 species of perennial and annual plants in the family Polemoniaceae. The phlox, like many other species, were collected by European plant explorers trying to be the first to find a unique flower. As an interesting side note, many of the European plant collectors began hybridizing the American species of phlox and Americans would discover them at shows and bring them back to America.
Normally you think of flowers being colorful, like the multi-colored chicken I posted yesterday, but some flowers didn’t get the memo about being colorful. Even white daisies with their yellow centers are colorful but this Indian Pipe has no chlorophyll and gets its nutrients through a mutually beneficial relationship with a fungus in the soil where it grows. And since it doesn’t need sunlight, it can grow in deep wooded areas.
Because of its lack of chlorophyll, it’s sometimes called ghost plant or corpse plant. The nodding flower pushed through the soil with the flower already formed and when the blossom is pollinated, the blossom straightens to an upright position. It turns black when it dies and then to me it looks like a burnt wooden match stick.
Indian pipe survives not from photosynthesis, but by stealing carbon from a mycorrhizal fungus living in the root zone of trees. Mycorrhizal fungi are symbiotic organisms that vastly increase the absorptive surface area of a tree’s root system and aid in uptake of specific nutrients and the tree responds by providing carbohydrates for the fungus.
By chemically mimicking the tree’s root system, the Indian pipe causes the mycorrhizal fungi to attach to its roots in a kind of biological identity theft. The fungus mycelium receives sugars produced by the trees from photosynthesis which some then gets passed to the ‘thieving’ Indian Pipes.
The unique requirements and epiparasitic ways make it all but impossible to cultivate in a garden or to transplant them.
Well since the spider wasn’t very popular and certain people wanted to squish it, here’s the lilies I was taking pictures of when I spotted the spider. And since I like to try different angles, sometimes that means getting low and you never know what creepy thing you might be eye to eye with.
