Braving the bugs for a bevy of beauties. Yeah, sorry.
Pink Ladies
Elusive Wildflowers – Part 13.3 – Pinesap
So we meet again!
Elusive wildflowers – Part 16 – Clintonia
Bluebead lily is a common flower that I'm never on time for.
Elusive Wildflowers 15 – Nodding Trillium
In what will probably be my last New Hampshire wildflower season I find a rare beauty I've never shot in the wild.
Elusive Flora
So this isn't a wildflower, but I'm going to put it in my Elusive Wildflowers category because it's got to go somewhere. There is also some irony in this little story, too, and that's always fun. As I said in my last post, this will most likely be my final spring in New Hampshire. When... Continue Reading →
Fate and the Irony of Bloodroot
This post is going to be dual purpose. To showcase these beautiful flowers and to announce that this will probably be a short wildflower season for me here in NH. And probably the last for the foreseeable future. I'm moving out of New Hampshire. Out of New England too. Wisconsin. That's where I'm headed. Husband... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers – Part 14 – Pale Corydalis
Just a quickie. This one was really hard to photograph because the plant is a big, sprawling mess really. At first I thought it might have been some long-finished columbine. A little closer and I thought it might be a kind of bleeding heart, then I noticed the flowers were missing their other half and had... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers – Part 13.2 – Pinesap
I found some!! I found some!! OMG! I barely know where to start this post other than to say that anyone witnessing me photographing these would have thought me crazy. It was almost an act of reverence. The fact that they were in a messy state and jammed up next to a pile of dead... Continue Reading →
Elusive wildflowers – Part 13.1 – Pinesap
It's the year for arriving late to the pinesap party. After years of looking for this unusual flower I found the mother lode in Weare, NH. OMG they were everywhere, but just past their full bloom stage. Darn it. You can bet I won't be late next year.
Elusive Wildflowers – Part 13 – Pinesap
Now this time I really mean it. Elusive. E. LU. SIVE. Hard to find. Hidden. Fugitive. Intangible. I've been hunting this flower ever since I became fascinated with its cousin the indian pipe. That was in 2011. Since that time I have found it once. Once. (shades of Johnny Dangerously) It was in Hollis NH... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers – Part 12 – Purple Gerardia
While wide-spread with many varieties, purple gerardia is new to me. Mostly because I think it gets lost in the overabundance of late summer. That and it grows in some pretty poor soil, basically sandy areas which are largely seen as waste lots full of weeds. Be that as it may, I got right down... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers – Part 11 – Black Nightshade
Nightshades are an interesting family of plants. Many of them are poisonous with lethality that goes mostly like this - mmm, yummy woah, trippy eww, I don't feel so good omg, I wish I was dead ugh, (clunk) Even the non-deadly ones have deleterious effects for some people. Those would be potatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers – Part 10 – Garden Loosestrife
Another one that's not elusive in the sense that it's rare, but that I've never encountered it before. This post combines my love of wildflowers and my yard macro thing from the last post. I spotted these guys in an overgrown garden that's being reclaimed by weeds. Sigh. Laziness. That's why I can't have anything... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers – Part 9
So, two new things for you today. First being this gorgeous wild bleeding heart I found in my yard today. Never before have I seen or photographed the wild variety and so when I saw it today, I got right out there. I didn't use the E-30 though. Nope. New camera making its debut on... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 8 – Cardinal flower
Wahoo! Another beauty photographed. Never have I shot these before, but while out doing some river work (my favorite, the Piscataquog, and I'll post about that soon) I found some near a pond's runoff streams. This flower has become quite rare in some areas due to people picking and digging it up a lot. I... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 7 – Horned Bladderwort
Another one that isn't so much elusive, as limited in photographic potential. It's limited in a few ways. First it lives in bogs and fens which are relatively rare habitats made rarer by man's manic need to fill in wetlands and build subdivisions on them. If you live in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee or Illinois the... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 6 – Wood Lily
Serendipity. Isn't that a great word? Almost as good as propinquity. But I digress. I say serendipity because a couple days ago I was thinking about wildflowers and how much I'd like to discover some wood lily in my travels. My parents had one growing in the front yard when I was a kid, and... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 5 – Grass Pinks
Elusive in the sense that they require a specific and rare habitat, not that I don't have them nearby or that they are scarce in that location. I'm lucky. I live near a kettle bog (two actually, but one has more trail, luckily the closer one). A kettle bog, named for the shape of the... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 4 – Indian Cucumber Root
This little wonder hides in plain sight. For years I've been marching past stands of them, ignoring them as just part of the undergrowth. This year though I looked closer and wondered what they were. Then the other day I noticed they made the most delicately strange little flowers under those leaves. I wasn't prepared... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 3 – Wild Columbine
Do you remember me stalking a plant that wasn't blooming and me not knowing what it was? Well today was my lucky day and I finally found it blooming. It's columbine! Yay!! Another one I'd never shot before. I don't remember even seeing it outside of books. Sa-weet. The light was really spectacular, but... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 1.3 – Hepatica in bloom redux
"It looked like I had another chance at the twenty dollars." - Philip Marlowe, The Little Sister There's never a bad time for Raymond Chandler now is there? When I went to see if another flower was blooming, I found that the hepatica still were and this line from my favorite Chandler came into my... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 2.1 – Bloodroot in bloom
I was right. It took two trips to get these in bloom. Somehow I'm not satisfied with my work, but for now it will do. The light went from terrific to flat in a short time and since it was still pretty breezy, I packed it in. Here's what I got though. Shot with a... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 2 – Bloodroot
My photographic journey with this flower has been an interesting one. Despite the long hours I spend in the woods and my quest for wildflowers to photograph, I'd never seen these beauties except in the photographs of others. A photographer acquaintance of mine even refused to disclose the location of the flowers a couple years... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 1.1 – Hepatica in bloom
Phew. A second trip got me what I wanted. Hepatica in bloom. The wind though was relentless and the light harsh, so my photographic options were somewhat limited, but I got a couple that I'm happy with. This first one is the same group of flowers in the trail that I shot on my first... Continue Reading →
Elusive Wildflowers Part 1 – Hepatica
In the event that I get crap out of the camera tomorrow, here's what I shot today. All three were shot with my old Olympus 90mm. It's round-lobed hepatica, a very early riser in the spring wildflower pantheon. And one I've never shot before. The name refers to the leaves which are quite distinctive and... Continue Reading →
