An even closer look at mountain pink flowers

I can’t stop, so let’s make it four in a row for mountain pink, Centaurium beyrichii, with this even closer look showing you these flowers’ corkscrew-style anthers (anyone for saffron fusilli?).

It’s time for a periodic reminder that honeybees came to the New World with European colonists. Before then, American plants relied on native insects and other animals for pollination. They still do, as you can see from this tiny dark bee—and tiny it was, probably no more than a quarter of an inch (6mm) long.

Because of the bee’s rapid movements and small size, I used flash with a shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second and an aperture of f/29. At such a close distance even that tiny aperture couldn’t produce much depth of field, so I did my best to focus on the bee (much of which came out sharp) and had to settle for the fact that many other things in the picture would go out of focus to varying degrees.

Today’s June 15th photograph comes from a property at FM 1431 and Brahma Ln. on the west side of Lago Vista.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman