Maple flowers. The buds measure just under five centimetres. One of the reasons I love macro photography is it forces me to examine plants for the beauty or subtleties that are often very easy to overlook.
This is the third year in a row I've attempted to take a photo of these, and the first time I've been happy with the image. However, I did “cheat” - I used the Wimberley Plamp that I received as a gift for Christmas. It makes a world of difference for macro photography, particularly so at the garden at UBC. It is a rare day when there is no breeze off the Georgia Strait, and wind is the bane of macro photography.
Daniel,
Really, really nice. This totally caught my eye today.
Linda
I have to laugh. Daniel is concerned about the wind in what is probably the least windy coastal city in the world. A stunning photo nevertheless. The tree is one of our prizes--about 8m tall by 6m wide, immediately beside the administration building and visible through a window in a stairwell, which allows for daily intimate viewing of its progress throughout the year. What I particularly like about the image is that it seems to capture the energy of the expanding flowers as they burst open the beautiful deerhide-like paired budscales.
Acer mono subsp. okamotoanum is an endemic from the Korean island of Ullung-do. Along with lovely, fat, overwintering buds and striking yellow flowers, it has extraordinary, broadly lobed leaves with long drip-tips. According to the indispensable maple reference, "Maples of the World" Timber Press, 1994 (page 225), "The tree has not been seen in flower." Our single tree is from a 1980 batch of seed that apparently also went to Britain. Unfortunately, none of that seed produced a tree. Perhaps there is one in Britain now. For beautiful, rare maples (and mostly calm weather) we are indeed fortunate .
Is there an archive of photos beyond what you have in the links at the top of the page? I am looking for a photo of a plaid flower (pattern looks like little squares) - purple and pink... I would love to look back a few months ... THX for your time!
If you click on Botany Photo of the Day in the upper left of the page, it will take to the main BPotD page and there are directories by category and by month on the right.
Sheila --- "looking for a photo of a plaid flower (pattern looks like little squares) - purple and pink" --- I suspect you might be looking for a Fritillaria. Not all Fritillaria are plaid, but some of them are, and I'm partial to the plaid Fritillaria myself.
Have a look here http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2008/09/fritillaria_meleagris.php (Sept 17, 2008)
and here http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2008/05/fritillaria_affinis.php (May 1, 2008)
And to add to Eric's instructions above, here's how I found these entries.
If you have an idea of what you might be looking for, when you get to the main page you can also search by name -- at the bottom of the left-hand column there's a search box.
I found these by entering "fritillaria" into the search box, and then scanning through the results for entries starting wtih "Botany photo of the day: Fritillaria..."