flowers

i take a lot of pictures of flowers. it's a thing i do. i also like to identify plants. i'm just like that.

but the venture vermont challenge has an item on it: "photograph and identify five species of native Vermont wild plants."

i'm sorry, but i couldn't stop at five, so here are the pictures i like best:

wood anemone (anemone quinquefolia), williston

red trillium (trillium erectum), willsiton

bluets (houstonia caerulia), williston

columbine (aquilegia candensis), williston

unidentified berry bush, genus rubus, williston

swamp milkweed (asclepius incarnata), williston

common st. johnswort (hypericum perforatum) (alien), bolton

indian pipe (monotropa uniflora), williston

view of flower parts

indian pipes are unusual as flowers and unusual as plants in that they have no chlorophyll and feed entirely on decayed matter. they function pretty much like a fungus in the ecosystem, except for the thing about THEY'RE FLOWERS. real actual flowers.

freaky.