Sunflower stalk

Stalk of a sunflower, Helianthus annuus.

But it isn’t just the flowers of the sunflower that attract me, whether fresh or fading: here a flower head is relegated to an indistinct patch of yellow visible through the notch of the branching plant in the foreground. How could I not be attracted to this rough beauty, with its alternating regions of chartreuse and maroon, and its white hairs that are coarser than my own?

© 2011 Steven Schwartzman