Month of Macro Part 2: Wildflowers

Month of Macro Part 2: Wildflowers

Continuing my macro explorations from my previous posts (if you missed them, check them out here and here) I switched my focus to wildflowers. Admittedly, January isn’t the most obvious time to go looking for flowers, but many of our local species have persistent seed heads that can be found through the winter. And some of these, as you’ll see, are quite intricate when observed up close. And in at least one case, some flowers already have their spring buds ready to go.

Below are some closer looks at common local wildflowers…

  1. The winter stalks of Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota) can be identified by seed heads that resemble birds’ nests. But up close, they start to look like different things.
The tips of the compound umbel of the Queen Anne’s lace inflorescence look like fireworks at the ends of their streaky trails through the sky, or dried up spiders at the ends of each umbel stalk.
Peering into the center of the “bird’s nest”, some of the seeds that haven’t yet been dispersed by the wind or eaten by the birds present a different picture: some of them reminding me of mini Venus fly traps.

2. Although the purple flowers have long since faded, the once-red 3-pronged bracts that supported each individual flower persist on the self heal (Prunella vulgaris) flower heads through the winter.

3. Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is a non-native plant that can become extremely weedy in some areas. Its flowers are not very showy, even in the summer, but the remnants of the small florets persist at the tips of the plants through winter. Equally noticeable are the curled up leaves, many of which remain attached to the lower stalks and retain their downiness.

The downy underside of a mugwort leaf.

4. Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) retains the hedgehog-like bracts that supported the individual florets last summer.

Circular anchor points for bracts that have already fallen off can be seen on the central “cone” structure of this coneflower seed head.
From the side, the full array of bracts gives the coneflower seed head a “hedgehog” look.

5. I noted the already-visible flower buds on Mayflower (Epigaea repens) in a November post, but here’s an even closer look.

Even if you can’t identify the plants to species this time of year, how many different types of wildflowers can you find based on their winter seed heads? If you look closely, what new details or patterns do you notice?

Cover photo: Goldenrod (Solidago sp.) seed head.

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