Salsify seeds and parachutes

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:07 pm

Salsify is any one of several Tragopogon species, all of European origin but now naturalized in eastern Washington State.

The seed head looks like a giant dandelion, with individual achenes close to 1-1/2" long.

It was a good thing that I shot this one on the way up, while hiking this afternoon. The wind came up, and on the way down I passed an empty head!

--Rik
Technical: Canon SD700 IS, auto-everything. The .jpg file reports 1/200 sec, f/2.8, 5.8 mm. The first image is close to full-frame, the second one is about 80% of actual pixels (1036 pixels high, resized to 796 pixels).

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:51 pm

So now you have something to remember it by, anyway!

I think I saw some of these while I was in the area last week, but I didn't recognize the difference from "standard" North American plants.

Glad you took your digicam on this hike, or do you wish you'd had a fancier (and presumably heavier) setup?

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:01 am

Mike B in OKlahoma wrote:Glad you took your digicam on this hike, or do you wish you'd had a fancier (and presumably heavier) setup?

As an experiment, I've been carrying only the point-and-shoot for the last couple of weeks.

So far, I've been pretty pleased with it. The performance-to-weight ratio is fantastic!

--Rik

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Tue Jun 05, 2007 3:13 am

Beautiful shots Rik.

These things, the seed heads, are rarely considered to be worth ones while in taking photographs of it seems, well at least to my observations but I kind'a like them. You did good with these.