British Soldiers and Spring Flowers

[Ken Ramos]

Yeah I have been out of touch with Macro here of late. Been spending a lot of time "yucking it up" with the boys over in Micro. Anyway I thought Doug may enjoy a little bit of mountain spring, since... Doug is snowed in.


British Soldiers, lichen
Canon EOS 20D
1/250 sec. @ f/18 ISO 400
Onboard flash
EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM

These lichens were really bright in the noon day sun, as I took my usual lunch time walk around the plant grounds.


(Image data, same as above)
Not a really big flower but hey, spring isn't due for a couple of weeks yet. Anyway the clover is in bloom and these tiny little blue flowers are everywhere.

[MacroLuv]

Nice finding Ken!
Great looking British soldiers.. your trademark.
That flower looks like a miniature wild Pansy, actually the progenitor of the cultivated Pansy. Common name is Heartsease or viola tricolor. And it is a common European wild flower with flowers about 1.5 cm in diameter.
I found this interesting story about Heartsease: - Long before cultivated pansies were developed, Heartsease was associated with thought in the "language of flowers", often by its alternative name of pansy (from the French "pensée" - thought): hence Ophelia's often quoted line in Shakespeare's Hamlet, "There's pansies, that's for thoughts". What Shakespeare had in mind was Heartsease, not a modern garden pansy.
Shakespeare makes a more direct reference to Heartsease in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Oberon sends Puck to gather a "little western flower" that "maidens" call Love-in-idleness". Oberon's account is that he diverted an arrow from Cupid's bow aimed at "a fair vestal, throned by the west" (supposedly Queen Elizabeth I) to fall upon the plant "before milk-white, now purple with love's wound". The "imperial vot'ress" passes on "fancy-free, destined never to fall in love." The juice of the heartsease now, claims Oberon, "on sleeping eyelids laid, Will make or man or woman madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees." Equipped with such powers, Oberon and Puck control the fates of various characters in the play to provide Shakespeare's essential dramatic and comic structure for the play.
Pansies can survive light freezes or a little snow and can bloom over the winter.

[Ken Ramos]

Interesting stuff there Nikola, I happen to like Shakespeare. As for the size of the flower you are pretty much correct. I did not meaure the size of it but just a guess would be the 1.5 cm you referenced. Thanks Nikoa

[beetleman]

Welcome back Ken. I enjoy your pictures no matter what forum they are in Looks like the sub zero weather we have been having in the mornings will be gone this week. It is amazing how the weather can be so different in a few hundred miles.