Day 149: Clasping Venus’s Looking Glass

 Backyard Nature, Native Plants, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
May 292014
 

This tiny, rather nondescript purple flower carries a grand name indeed — Clasping Venus’s Looking Glass (Triodanis perfoliata).  It is an annual herb, native to most of the eastern North America.  I recently glimpsed a couple of isolated individuals, each bearing aloft a single five-petaled flower about half an inch across, near the Piney Woods Church Road intersection with Rico Road.  They offer practically the only patch of purple along the road right now, surrounded by a sea of green leaves.  Scotts Lawn Service offers to “fight” this plant with “systemic weed control,” “killing it completely, root and all.”  Am I the only one that is baffled by this assertion?  There are so many battles we need to engage in throughout our lives — fighting against injustice, poverty, industrial air pollution — but is this really one of them?

 

Clasping Venus's Looking Glass

 

Day 148: Persimmon Shading

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May 282014
 

On Day 148, I set out shortly after 9 am in search of something new and intriguing.  A new horse fence is being installed along Piney Woods Church Road, and I was also distracted by various frustrations, so I found it more difficult than usual to focus on all the beauty around me.  Still, I found this lovely common persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) leaf, glowing with the morning sunlight.  It is quite sufficient for the day.

 

Persimmon Shading

Day 147: Luna Moth Forewing

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May 272014
 

On my walk today I glanced down onto the ground beside the roadway and saw this forewing of a Luna Moth (Actias luna) — a memento mori, a reminder of how fleeting nature’s beauty can sometimes be.  It makes me realize that my single walk down Piney Woods Church Road each day isn’t nearly enough to take it all in — I am missing so much that happens during the many hours that I am not there.

 

Luna Moth Forewing

Day 145: Wrapture

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May 252014
 

It was a nondescript warm and somewhat hazy late afternoon along Piney Woods Church Road today. I found nothing particularly exciting to photograph (apart from a couple of lovely spiders I will save for another post).  But this image of vine wrapped with a tendril I find entrancing. There is an Asian watercolor feel to it — a flowing grace of color and form.  It is one of a thousand vines along the roadside (probably greenbrier) that I pass every day.  And yet it is beautiful.

Wrapture

Day 144: Coil

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May 242014
 

On my way home on a hazy evening after a lackluster photo shoot along Piney Woods Church Road, I paused to photograph a coiled tendril of wild muscadine grape.  Against the gray sky, the tendril was simply a black outline; but against the dark green of a nearby cedar, the vine became a vibrant red spiral.

 

Coil

Day 140: Commonplace Leaf, in the Morning Light

 Backyard Nature, Native Plants, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
May 202014
 

This morning I set out down Piney Woods Church Road as usual, in search of an image for Day 140.  I knew it would be practically impossible to match yesterday’s photographs of a pair of mating silkmoths.  I settled, instead, for yet another tulip poplar leaf, illumined by the mid-morning sun.  There is so much beauty in even the most commonplace expressions of nature.

 

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