My greetings to everyone in this community!
This is the flower of a plant that we call a Mordovian (lat. Echínops). They grow very tall and prickly, and therefore their spherical inflorescences are inconvenient for me to photograph, since my height is small. But today I noticed a couple of these balls low above the grass. They grew up on the site of a previously felled plant and immediately prepared to bloom, so as not to waste time on full growth and have time to give seeds. They acted wisely, of course, and I was lucky to do this macro without standing on tiptoe and without the risk of pricking myself on thorns.
The flowers on it begin to bloom from the top of the head and then fill the whole ball. I like the very beginning of flowering, because later the upper flowers begin to fade and it does not look very attractive. When I set up to take a closer picture of the flowers, a fly flew into the frame and settled on the flower. Of course, it is a great luck to catch such an event and have time to photograph it twice.
Approaching this winged insect with the lens, I scared him off and this shooting ended there.
But then I'm going to show the photos taken a few days earlier on high Echinops. I risked photographing them on the steep bank of the river. They are much taller than me, but I still managed to do something interesting.
These are the terrible thorns on their leaves, which I don't want to get to know better at all, but I took the risk to do it.
This is what the end of flowering looks like. It's also fun to watch. Later, the flowers will fall off, the balls will darken and become prickly, so that they can cling to someone and thus spread their seeds. The plant is considered curative in folk and official medicine, but the effect of its alkaloids is very serious, so it is better not to experiment with it yourself.
| Camera: Konica Minolta DIMAGE Z2 |
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Thank you very much for visiting and reading!
@lllll1ll