Tuesday, June 25, 2019

What's blooming in central Wisconsin?

Ditch art.  This wild grape vine and a budding Queen Anne's Lace make an unexpectedly pleasing pair.

Colorado or Bust, Day 6:

Spring is turning into summer, and here in the heart of Wisconsin that means a profusion of wild flowers.  Today I had a 'boring' 14.2 mile road walk to accomplish.  The land is pretty flat, the weather was benign, and I wasn't passing any landmarks of note, so I had to entertain myself in other ways.  I decided to 'smell the roses' - to concentrate on documenting all the little splashes of color that lined the shoulder and banks beside the road.  Here's what I came up with.

First of all, have you ever really taken a good look at a common, ordinary dandelion flower.  In 70+ years I apparently never had.  The detail - all the little squiggly pistils - came as a complete, delightful surprise.


Plain old pink clover, when viewed from a different perspective, can also present an interesting picture.


A lot of the other flowers I can't identify, but that takes little away from my appreciation.

Here's my favorite individual portrait.  I have no clue about the function of the hollow bulb, but it seems an important part of this flower:


Here's a gallery of several more across the color palate:


Can you count the ants?  They seem to love this common tall blooming weed.  Maybe they're brushing up on their fractal geometry?


This old variety of iris grows 'wild' along the road, though, like the tawny European daylily, which grows here but is a month from blooming, was probably originally a garden plant brought by immigrants.


More bugs.  Bugs like flowers.  (Flowers like bugs.)


Here a fungus makes a showy statement as it infects leaves of a common blackberry


It had much the same color as this collection of common meadow flower


Red and orange are unusual colors here this time of year, but one distinctive exception is the eastern columbine:


Of course the Monarch Butterfly fits in this color class too, and there are plenty of them around now, even though the milkweed isn't yet blooming--the flower buds are just beginning to peek out the top of the plant.  But since we're on the subject of Butterfly color, here's one that it took me all day to capture.  This type doesn't often sit still for long.


The GPS Track for the day shows the setting for this small adventure.


The lesson for the day:  Joy is everywhere.  You just have to open your eyes and your heart.

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