Strangeness atop sinuosity

 

Not for the first time and I hope not for the last in Great Hills Park, on June 13th I noticed a Mexican hat (Ratibida columnifera) that had sprouted an unusual second set of ray florets near the tip of its seed column. (Imagine if you had a second set of legs coming out of your forehead.) The picture below, also taken with flash but looking upward rather than sideways, shows how sinuous the stalk was that ended in the floral anomaly. Too bad, pictorially, that the regular ray florets had gotten nibbled.

 

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman