Purple star with fibers

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:18 pm

It was cold and rainy today, and I couldn't stand it -- I had to go find something to bring indoors and play with.

This reminds me a bit of a sea star, but of course it's actually a flower.

Anybody recognize what kind?

--Rik

Bruce Williams · Post by **Bruce Williams** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:53 am

Clocks went forward today so 1 hour less sleep - that's my excuse

.

My startpoint was "I don't recognise this flower!". So...

Well I've Googled endless March wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest looking for small, purple, 5-petaled flowers with white stamens and white, styleless stigma lobes (are those things stigma lobes? I did wonder if ithe flower was unisexual?). Then I thought "Could be an ornamental garden flower...or maybe unusual tree blossom...". ...all getting me nowhere fast

...and then I thought "Well it's sunny outside and Maggy needs her walk and there could be some photos to take....

So while I maybe know a little more about Washington State wildflowers I'm non the wiser as far as this particular flower is concerned.

Nice pic Rik.

Bruce

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:52 am

I'm clueless on IDing anything that doesn't have a pulse, but this is nicely done anyway. I assume it is stacked?

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 10:10 am

Deeply stacked.

It's not a wildflower. Actually it's ground cover under my hornbeam trees. Neither the hornbeams nor the ground cover is native.

And to tell the truth, I'm not sure I'd recognize this thing if I had a tray of options in front of me.

The macro shot gives me a much different impression from the whole flower.

I'll let it sit a bit before showing you what I mean.

--Rik

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 11:22 am

A very interesting flower Rik. I love the five sided shape. Could it be Periwinkle?

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 11:34 am

I too am at a loss for and ID, perhaps if we could see the whole flower

Lots of details in the center of that thing though, looks almost synthetic, the longer you look at it, the more you're attention is drawn into the center of the flower. Pretty neat shot Rik.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 11:45 am

beetleman wrote:A very interesting flower Rik. I love the five sided shape. Could it be Periwinkle?

Yee-hah!

10 points and a tip of the hat to Doug Breda!

Funny thing is, I had to look it up to discover that you're right. We've always called them Vinca's. But there they are in Wikipedia and the UK Plant Identification site, not quite as big as life (and a whole lot less detailed

) -- Vinca minor, the Lesser Periwinkle.

Nice job, and thanks for the info!

--Rik

Technical: The posted shot is straight down the center of the flower tube, 7 mm square by 6.5 mm deep. 128 frames at 0.002" spacing. Canon 300D with Olympus 38mm f/2.8 bellows macro lens at f/5.6. Helicon Focus with default parameters, no touchup. Daylight filtered halogen illumination from two bare fiber bundles positioned just beside the lens, no diffusion. Custom white balance, in camera.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:01 pm

Here's a closer crop of the same image.

I'm pretty weak on the anatomy of these things. Obviously the long clear fibers are coming from the sides of the tube formed by the petals. I presume that the cream-colored structures are part of the ovary, but what might be style, stigma, etc. is still a mystery to me.

--Rik

Field width 3.7 mm.

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 4:40 am

Well, what happened was, you mentioned it was a ground cover and not natural, so I did a search for flowering ground cover and the Periwinkle came up with the same color and five sided flower design. Was only a guess without seeing the whole enchalada

. The crop is excellent...Amazing the stuff that is right under our feet (you would not want to see a macro of my feet...or maybe

)

Cyclops · Post by **Cyclops** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:54 am

Could it be a passiflora?

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:56 pm

Rik wrote:I'm pretty weak on the anatomy of these things.

Hah -- now that was an understatement!

See follow-up at Exotic structure of the Lesser Periwinkle.

--Rik