So, yesterday, I threw you a challenge : identify a flower from a mere bud.
And the winner is: aspidoscelis , who was the first to realize this is the genus Mimulus . I knew you guys could do it!
These are the flowers that started us on the road to mystery flora, actually. Remember when you guys corrected my misidentification and begged for more flowers? Yep. And we’ve enjoyed the hell out of it, haven’t we? I’m glad you all enjoy these posts, because it gives me an excuse for my floral photography.
Mimulus II
I’m having no luck tracking down the exact species, and I haven’t got time to pursue it. Hopefully, someone here will recognize which these are, and then we can entertain ourselves with trivia. I did, however, find several species that like basalt flows , so it looks like a trip to eastern Washington in search of monkeyflowers is in order. I also wish to track down our rare native species, Mimulus washingtonensis .
Monkeyflower hunters might want to peruse this site for our current suspect.
Mimulus III
Yes, I went a bit nuts photographing these. I love them. Love love love. I love their shape, and their strange leaves, and their red spots, and their little hairs. I love how different they are from the usual types of flora. I love how macro mode loves them.
They’re slightly exotic, yet quite friendly. And they certainly add interest to a place filled with green everything.
And they seem rather sociable. Well, I suppose most wetland plants have to be. Everything’s crowded in, ten thousand things trying to grow in one spot, so you don’t tend to get loners. And sometimes, three sorts of flowers at once budge in petal-by-sepal, like friends crowding into a photo booth.
Okay, yes, they’ve kinda squashed our Ranunculus down towards the bottom, there, but still, everybody’s in the frame. And moments like this, when you find a tangled bank of endless forms most beautiful, you really have one of those sublime moments where hanging out with the results of billions of years of evolution make you delighted to be alive.
Unless, of course, you suffer from allergies, in which case, you might want to admire from afar.
Related
Unless, of course, you suffer from allergies, in which case, you might want to admire from afar.
Just as a general rule, if the flower is attractive, it’s pollen is vectored biotically. You generally don’t even notice wind pollinated flowers, the ones that affect your allergies, because they don’t waste energy on attractive parts and make more pollen instead.
The mystery Mimulus is M. guttatus. Sometimes called seep monkeyflower.