Big

Here's something you don't see every day.  With a few caveats, this is the largest flower in the world.  A Corpse Flower, in bloom at Selby Gardens, is a rare sight to see.  Soon as I got the email yesterday afternoon (2 emails, 'twas urgent!), I knew I'd have to ride out and see it today.  My membership at Selby had expired, so even though I was about tenth in line, I had to renew my membership and was thus about the 30th person to get in and see this sight this morning. And that line never let up, seems like everyone in town wanted to see this beauty.

I won't claim to know a lot about it, but it looked pretty cool.  I guess it's not a true flower, but more correctly a flower stem. When it's not blooming, it seems to be a pretty small, undistinguished thing.  It stores up energy in an underground tuber, and then almost at random, or at least on a schedule not yet understood by science, some of them drop the leafy part and create one of these flowers.

Way down in the bottom are the real flowers, making pollen and a horrid stench that is meant to attract the flies that it depends on for pollination.  I guess when it first opened the previous afternoon, the stench was truly something to behold, but it wasn't too bad when I saw it.  Not so bad even as that Star flower I had on my back porch once upon a time.

In case you can't appreciate the scale of the 3-1/2 to 4 foot flower, here's a shot of one of the other visitors with his head hovering over it.  It's big!

VD 25

And this is the end of my Valentine's Day flower spectacular! Hope you've enjoyed all the flower close-ups. Now I can go to sleep, it's been a long day!

VD 24

Well, it wouldn't be Valentine's Day without a rose, now would it? So here's the first rose of the day, from the rose garden at the Ringling Museum.

VD 23

I've changed venues slightly at this point. Instead of shooting flowers at Selby Gardens, I'm shooting flowers inside the Ringling Estate. And this time, I think I know the name of the flower. I think this is an Ice Flower, or something like that. I first saw these in San Francisco almost ten years ago. I think they were an invasive exotic from South Africa. I don't remember all the details, but I know they make pretty pictures.

VD 22

Enough with the purple, I think it's time for some yellow. Many of these shots show the very narrow range of focus when shooting macro lens at a wide aperture. Only some of the shot is in focus at a given time. I had a hard time holding the camera still, too, and add in a little wind at the same time, and I was lucky that any of these shots came out at all. But on the whole, I've been pretty happy with them.

VD 21

What's that? You didn't get enough purple before? No problem, here are a few more for you.

Hope you're having a great Valentine's Day!

VD 20

I think butterflies loose a little of their beauty when you get too close to them. They start to look more like bugs and less like flying works of art.  I might be able to get a clearer picture if they weren't constantly moving...

VD 19

A little more purple for you, this time from a much smaller flower. The fuzzy purple glow in the foreground and background are more flowers, way out of focus. Cool effect, I thought.

VD 18

Don't you just love purple?

VD 17

OK, the reason I was out looking for flowers yesterday was in hopes of finding one of these. This is a bombax tree, and it puts out these giant red flowers right about this time of year. This one had only started blooming, and all the flowers were 50 feet off the ground. Thus, all you can see are the backs of them, and I think they loose a little something in the distance. But I had to show you my motivation.

VD 16

OK, so this isn't a flower. It's a leaf, and it's got some sort of fungus on it that's making these spots. But I still thought it was colorful enough to shoot and share with you.

VD 15

Another blossom from the bromeliad family. Which reminds me, it's got to be getting about time for another plant show and sale at the local exotic plant nursery. That's always good for some great flower pictures.

VD 14

The flowers at Selby Gardens are many and varied. No idea what this is, but it's cool looking.

VD 13

Lucky number 13 and halfway through today's Valentine's Day flower spectacular. Hope you're enjoying some of these great pictures. This is some sort of bromeliad, no idea which one, and I shot it at Selby Gardens. They've got lots and lots of great things to see and shoot.

VD 12

Don't forget that I'm taking all these flower pictures with a 100mm macro lens. Those flowers above are less than a quarter inch across. I'm amazed at how well come of these came out. There are plenty of ugly ones that I'm not showing you, but most of them came out surprisingly well.

VD 11

Sort of the opposite of a black-background picture. In this case, the flower in the foreground is relatively dark, so when I expose for it, the background gets too bright. It's not a bad look, but I think I prefer the black background.

VD 10

There's that black background again. I think there have to be three or more stops of difference between the foreground and the background for it to go black like that. The flower was illuminated in the sun, and the background was in dark shade. It's great when things work out like that.

VD 9

So many fine little details in there... If I were an insect, I'm sure I'd quickly become trapped and eaten.

VD 8

Uh-oh, an orchid. That must mean I'm in the greenhouse at Selby Gardens. They always have the coolest stuff in there, even in the middle of February.

VD 7

When you get in too close, sometimes it's hard to know what you're looking at. These are the stamens deep inside of a yellow blossom on something. I think stamen is the word. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. I love being able to get in there and shoot things this small. I didn't even have to crop this one. I'm really learning to love this lens!