The Queen of Wildflowers

Along with April showers, the month of April also brings a profusion of Queen Anne's Lace to Mississippi's roadsides. I had been looking forward to capturing pictures of the season's first blossoms, so you can imagine my frustration and dismay when I discovered that the huge mowing machines had been at work in my favorite "Queen Anne's Lace-picture-taking-place," and had cut down every single flower!  

Be that as it may, the story has a happy ending.  This past weekend, my husband and I passed by my "Queen Anne's Lace" place and I was delighted to see a sprinkling of little white flowers gracefully blowing in the breeze.  

I couldn't believe they came back, and was bound and determined to capture them in pictures before the mowers leveled them again.

Although they were not as plentiful or as "lush" as I was hoping ... and even though there was a slight breeze stirring amongst the blossoms and the bright mid-morning sunlight was not ideal for taking photos (especially of white flowers) ... I managed to capture a few pictures I felt were worthy of keeping.

   

  

I did a little research on Queen Anne's Lace and learned that it originated in Europe, where it was used in old Victorian gardens. It is also known as "Wild Carrot," and can be found growing wild along roadsides almost anywhere in America.

Queen Anne's Lace is best known for its flowers, which are tiny and white, blooming in lacy, flat-topped clusters which resemble little doilies.

 Curiously, at the center of the flower heads there is a tiny floret, which is deep purple in color.

No one knows for sure what the function of the floret might be, but English tradition says it is a drop of blood that fell from Anne's finger when she pricked it making lace. More than likely, the colored flower part serves as a target for potential pollinators.

I found it interesting that some of the flower heads didn't have florets, or at least they weren't easily visible.

Perhaps the flowers weren't as mature as the blooms with the florets.

I was fascinated by the florets and hoped to capture some "up close and personal" pictures of them, in spite of the breeze causing them to sway back and forth on their long, graceful stems.

Some of the florets reminded me of tiny purple rosebuds, and others made me think of miniature butterfly wings.

I was pleased to capture this close-up shot which shows the tiny stem of a floret ...

As with most flowers, I discovered that the underside of Queen Anne's Lace is as beautiful and interesting as the topside ...

Isn't that amazing!

I hope you enjoyed seeing these beautiful wildflowers from a little different perspective, perhaps, than  just seeing them from a car window as you pass them on the side of a road somewhere.  I'm so glad I was able to capture them in pictures, far away from the blades of the mowing machines ... forever preserved in my photo albums, as surely as if they were pressed between the yellowing pages of an old book.

Beauty and the Beast

You're probably curious about the title for this post, but that's what came to mind as I took the pictures I'm sharing today. The "beauty" is an elegant wildflower called Queen Anne's Lace, and this time of year it can be found gracing our Mississippi roads, from the hill country of North Mississippi, to the flat coastal highways of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I recently went in search of Queen Anne's Lace in hopes of capturing some new pictures for my collection. I wasn't disappointed ... There were patches of it growing everywhere along the country roads surrounding Vicksburg, and I was in my glory as I stopped to get close up shots of the lacy flower heads on top of the long graceful stems swaying gently in the breeze. Like snowflakes, there were no two flowers alike. Think about that for a minute. Isn't that awesome! This next flower reminds me of a pinwheel, and I wish I had gotten a better picture of it. I wonder what the odds are of my finding it again. Probably better than the odds were of my winning the Mega Millions lottery. The little purple "heart" of this flower reminds me of a little butterfly floating deep within its center. I'm so glad I captured my pictures before the big mowers begin their mowing season. There were wildflowers everywhere, and I love the red clover mixed in and amongst them. I hope you will forgive me for getting so carried away with the "beauty" part of my story. I love Queen Anne's Lace, and get only one chance a year to capture and preserve a little of its beauty in my pictures. And that brings us to "The Beast!" As I explored the back roads, I was struck by the contrast between the elegant Queen Anne's Lace, and the prickly Thistle plants that were mixed in and amongst the patches of the graceful flowers. At first glance, thistle is not an attractive plant, and its "spines," or "thorns," or "prickles," are lethal. I researched thistles while writing this post to find out what the "thorns" are called, and found the following information: "Thistles are non-woody plants that are outfitted with prickles, one of the three different kinds of plant armor recognized by botanists. Thorns are modified branches. Spines are modified leaves." [Source: Thistles] Whatever you want to call them, I found out from personal experience that they can be very painful (I was trying to shoo a bug away from a plant I was photographing and accidentally touched one of the needles). But prickles or not, if you will look a little closer, you will see that thistles have a beauty all their own. I hope I have inspired you to slow down and take some time to get a closer look at some of the wildflowers growing along the roadsides where you live. They're there for such a short time, but the experience of seeing them up close and from a different perspective will stay with you for a very long time.