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Sunday, May 17, 2009

More Spring Blossoms


This morning I woke at 4 a.m. and got up to finish the short story I'd started yesterday. That's almost 3,000 words in two days, and then there are the two books I'm reading, going back and forth from one to the other, so, all in all, I don't have a lot to say in today's post. How many thousand words are these pictures worth?







10 comments:

Gerry said...

Many words! What a lovely green and white trillium and jack in the pulpit and red trillium and . . . wait, wait, 3000 words in two days? No fair.

P. J. Grath said...

Looking at some of the images I didn't post, I realize that another pink trillium--one I thought was turning color from age--is actually striped green with that virus like the white ones. It's a strange effect. Maybe I'll post it later today.

No fair? What about all the work I did all winter and then decided had gone in the wrong direction? Ha! We take what we can get when we get it, right? What I'm doing is probably not even marketable, but I can't seem to stop.

Gerry said...

OK. Fair.

Anonymous said...

What a lovely pink trillium! Never seen one. It started red and faded? Thank you thank you.

P. J. Grath said...

Well, I thought I would cut and paste this comment I just left on the post subsequent to this one, but it didn't work for some reason, so here goes again.

No, the pink trillium is not a faded red one but an aging white. The white, says author-botanist Ed Arnfield, "turns a pale pink as it ages." In either the younger white or older pink flower, it is "an organism or virus [that] produce[s] "a central green stripe in the flower." This is Trillium grandiflora we're talking about.

The deep red trillium, T. erectum L., can also vary in color, says Harry C. Lund (MICHIGAN WILDFLOWERS IN COLOR) "to purple, yellow, greenish, or white." There are none of these in the woods I frequent, but a friend knows a farm that has a large colony, and I'd love to see them sometime. The other name for this species is--I kid you not--stinking Benjamin. Who was poor Benjamin, and how bad did he smell? One wonders.

Anonymous said...

No need for a thousand words. The violets had me at 'Hello.'

P. J. Grath said...

We think alike on the violets....

Anonymous said...

Exquisite blooms! You did a great job photographing them...

P. J. Grath said...

Thanks. The yellow violet reminds me of an old (very old) Saturday morning cartoon character. Shy but saucy, very feminine, quietly flirtatious.

P. J. Grath said...

Thanks. The yellow violet reminds me of an old (very old) Saturday morning cartoon character. Shy but saucy, very feminine, quietly flirtatious.