A closer view of cynanchum
Click for greater clarity and size.
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here’s a close look at three Cynanchum barbigerum flowers, each of which is only about 1/8 of an inch (3mm) long. Can you see the little white “beards”—clicking the image helps—implied by the species name barbigerum and the colloquial name bearded swallow-wort? Note the strongly recurved corolla lobes that seem more like mustaches than beards; you can count five on each flower because milkweeds do things in fives.
This picture once again comes from a July 3rd jaunt through the Bull Creek Nature Preserve, and in fact these flowers were on the same vine that you saw in the last photograph. Obviously this time I didn’t aim upward into the blue sky but sideways toward something dark, probably a group of shaded Ashe juniper trees.
© 2013 Steven Schwartzman
Beautiful. Love the fuzzy part of the flowers.
Lisa Vankula-Donovan
July 24, 2013 at 6:47 AM
I’d say that that fuzziness compensates for the flowers’ tininess. Now you’ve got me wondering whether those little hairs serve a purpose.
Steve Schwartzman
July 24, 2013 at 7:13 AM
The dark background is especially lovely in this image.
Mufidah Kassalias
July 24, 2013 at 8:25 AM
Thanks, Mufidah. I really like the dark background here too.
Steve Schwartzman
July 24, 2013 at 8:35 AM
Nice view of the finer details, Steve.
Steve Gingold
July 24, 2013 at 1:37 PM
The vine’s delicacy calls for a closer look at the fine details, so I felt I should provide it.
Steve Schwartzman
July 24, 2013 at 1:44 PM
Fantastic shot! I love your choice of depth of field, and the background is perfect for this image. Cheers!!
Steve
July 25, 2013 at 8:25 PM
Thanks. I felt fortunate at such close range to manage to get the fuzzy parts of all three flowers in focus simultaneously.
Steve Schwartzman
July 25, 2013 at 8:41 PM
This truly is amazing. I have a pretty little ladybug I found dead on a leaf. She’s perfect, except for being dead, of course. She’s about 3/16″ long – bigger than these blooms! I have her sitting on a rock, waiting to be my model when I try to figure out the super-macro settings on my camera.
Interesting that milkweeds do things in fives. I see what look to be two more buds. Under normal conditions, would this bloom in groups of five flowers?
shoreacres
July 26, 2013 at 4:52 PM
Good question: as far as I know, the fiveness applies to the parts of each individual bud and flower, but not to groups of flowers. The fiveness is apparent in retrospect in pearl milkweed flowers and antelope-horns milkweed flowers.
And yes, these cynanchum flowers are tiny. That may be why I missed them on the outward-bound half of my walk. Good luck with the super macro settings on your camera. The closer you can get, the more wonders will be revealed.
Steve Schwartzman
July 26, 2013 at 5:06 PM
Exquisite details in this shot Steve! Very interesting flowers.
Michael Glover
July 26, 2013 at 11:42 PM
I hadn’t seen this delicate species in several years, so I was happy for the chance to photograph it.
Steve Schwartzman
July 26, 2013 at 11:45 PM
I am so impressed when you publish such close up pix! Had you considered shooting one of the flowers directly centered for star-shape symmetry?
whilldtkwriter
July 31, 2013 at 5:25 AM
Sometimes I do take a straight-on view of a flower to maximize symmetry, but I just looked back at the pictures I took of the cynanchum and found that I didn’t do that in any of the images. I like getting very close, but that creates focusing problems, especially when I try to get more than one thing in focus at the same time. Here I somehow managed three, so I give you permission to be impressed. I was, too.
Steve Schwartzman
July 31, 2013 at 6:50 AM
[…] I never showed talayote here till now, I did feature a different Cynanchum species in […]
Talayote | Portraits of Wildflowers
December 21, 2017 at 4:42 AM
About 30 minutes ago Linda mentioned ashe juniper pollen in a comment on my blog. Here I find a second reference to ashe juniper. 2 mentions in less than an hour! Yours is more favourable than Linda’s.
Gallivanta
December 21, 2017 at 6:31 AM
On the model of “Children should be seen but not heard,” allergy sufferers here at this time of year wish that Ashe juniper could be seen but its pollen not breathed. We have a bunch of Ashe junipers around our house, and in some winters I’ve suffered the allergic reaction that locals call cedar fever (even if the tree isn’t a cedar and fever isn’t a symptom of the reaction). In this photograph the Ashe juniper was “out of sight, out of mind.”
Steve Schwartzman
December 21, 2017 at 9:42 AM
If I ever get to visit, I must remember to avoid the cedar fever season.
Gallivanta
December 21, 2017 at 4:15 PM
Yes, it would be much better to come to Texas in April and see the spring wildflowers.
Steve Schwartzman
December 21, 2017 at 4:50 PM
That would be lovely.
Gallivanta
December 21, 2017 at 8:16 PM