From “Dogwood Snow” by Dorothy Thompson in The Music of Silence, edited by Alyssa R. Stokes:
Growing up in the South, It’s such a rare thing To see the snows of winter; That’s why I like the spring.
All the flowers begin to bloom; Colors explode everywhere, Painting a scene of beautiful hues No artist will ever compare.
Most of all I like the woods With trees in green, pink, and white. Looking like God sprinkled the seed With a gentle show of might.
And there you see the Dogwood tree With a history we all know; White petals falling to the ground Making our Southern snow.
Hello!
Well! I don’t get to take photos like this very often, since a photogenic snowstorm is such a rare event here in Middle Georgia. But I knew before even looking out the window this morning that we’d had some accumulation: a layer of snow has a way of softening the sounds of the neighborhood that is unlike anything else. I remember from my childhood years in northern New York — where we used to get tons and tons of snow most winters — that a certain kind of quiet morning meant it had snowed overnight.
Our last notable snowstorm was in 2014 — over ten years ago! — and it was such a disaster, it’s still remembered in great detail by people in the area. The city and state gained well-deserved notoriety for being so unprepared for a two-inch, early afternoon snowfall that the interstates clogged with abandoned vehicles stuck on untreated roads. Stories are still told today of people who had to figure out how to walk home from some random spot on the highway, sometimes walking several miles on the same roads they would normally drive, around all the cars that couldn’t move. If you search Google images for Atlanta Snowmageddon 2014, you’ll see some representative (and very accurate!) images that are part of the collective memory of that storm. We have fared much better this time around, though the overnight hours will likely bring some freezing rain, best avoided by most drivers.
My Little Dog, at six years old, has never seen snow. While I had hoped for a few shots of his perky self bouncing around in the yard while the snow was still fluffy, here’s what actually happened: I opened the back door, he took one look at the yard, gave me one of those well-known dog side-eyes, and trotted to his safe space under my desk. Ah, well, maybe he just knew this: a few minutes later, it started raining, and snow isn’t much fun in the rain….
From “Chrysanthemum” in Garden Flowers by Matthias Hermann:
“The name chrysanthemum (golden flower) comes from the characteristic golden-yellow color which most species had, at least in the primitive types. But cultivation has so modified this genus that the yellow color has completely disappeared in a great many varieties. As typical of real chrysanthemums, there is the old garden chrysanthemum which came from Mediterranean Europe, it is a perennial plant cultivated as an annual. One variety with completely white flowers was obtained which is very hardy and comes up in any position. Its very abundant flowers bloom successively from June until the frosts.
“The most remarkable of all is the Indian chrysanthemum. This beautiful species has a considerable number of varieties, which differ in the size of the plant, the shape, sizes and color of the flowers and flowering season; among these are the common garden chrysanthemum with wide flowers and long spreading rays whose stems and flower-heads can reach enormous proportions, and the Christmas flower, which is interesting because of the strange arrangement of its florets.”
“Magenta Mums.” Sloppy abbreviated speech? “Magenta Chrysanthemums.” Translated from the Greek — magenta “golden flowers.” Startling confusion of colours…. I was given some plants to brighten the southern bed in front of my house. They gratefully flourished.
Shoots from those early plants gladden the gardens of many relatives and friends.
Like autumnal Painted Daisies, magenta rays encircle golden centres above multitudes of aromatic lobed leaves.
Hello!
Autumn seems like the shortest season of the year here in the middle of Georgia, one that flies by with a few flashes of traditional fall color in a matter of days. Unless we get cold weather in September (which is rare) or some freezing days in October (which is nearly as rare) then Atlanta’s trees don’t turn until mid- to late-November, then they promptly drop all their leaves. Delightfully, though, the few temperate weeks of November leading up to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays seem to give autumn mums and daisies a big boost — so I go mum-hunting around that time and save most of the photos for January. Then, during the most colorless time of the year, I still get to work with nature’s tints and tones for a few weeks before those of early spring start to appear.
I posted some of the mums I photographed on these trips around Thanksgiving (see Pink Daisies, Pink Mums (1 of 3), Pink Daisies, Pink Mums (2 of 3), and Pink Daisies, Pink Mums (3 of 3)) but saved the rest (about 200 images) to share throughout this month. Those in this post were a new discovery for me: I had never seen these richly magenta-colored flowers on any previous trips, and found them randomly scattered, somewhat hidden, among some red and orange mums I’ll be posting later.
In addition to their hot magenta color, this variant — most likely of Indian Chrysanthemum or Chrysanthemum indicum — has a noteworthy design, which becomes more evident as you scroll down through the views I used when taking the photographs. As the petals radiate from the centers of the flowers, the throat of each petal is pure white, a visual effect that looks a little like spokes of a wheel. If you are a bee, you might see this as a map to the yellow center of the flower: the contrast between magenta and white could lead you to treat this arrangement as a landing strip for the disc florets, the round cluster of yellow flowers where little bees like to forage and pollination wants to occur.
Magenta is fairly common in flowers, though we’ll often find shades of pink, light purple, violet, fuchsia, and related colors mixed throughout a flower we see as (or refer to as) magenta. This particular mum is one of the very few flowers I’ve photographed where Lightroom detects magenta only (other than white) among the flower petal colors. Many of the flowers in the three previous posts I linked to above appear to be similarly colored, but in those Lightroom also detects purple, red, and splashes of blue along with magenta — which is what I usually find among flowers displaying magenta-like colors.
If I analyze the colors more closely with something like the ColorSlurp utility, the same thing happens, though this tool identifies the color as heliotrope magenta — heliotrope being a color that has a cultural history of its own. Heliotrope’s Victorian background is described in The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair, where the author explains how it came to be used as a color of mourning in the late 1800s, representing later stages of mourning or to show respect for more distant relatives for whom black mourning colors were considered too stark. I supposed it’s no surprise, then, that I found these among the monuments at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens — though I can’t help but wonder if their placement there was as an intentional remembrance, or if someone just liked the rich color and spoke-wheel design.
Everybody, everywhere seeks happiness, it’s true, But finding it and keeping it seems difficult to do, Difficult because we think that happiness is found Only in the places where wealth and fame abound — And so we go on searching in ‘palaces of pleasure’ Seeking recognition and monetary treasure, Unaware that happiness is just a ‘state of mind’ Within the reach of everyone who takes time to be kind — For in making others happy we will be happy too, For the happiness you give away returns to ‘shine on you’.
‘Tis the white anemone, fashioned so Like to the stars of the winter snow, First thinks, “If I come too soon, no doubt I shall seem but the snow that stayed too long, So ’tis I that will be Spring’s unguessed scout,” And wide she wanders the woods among Then, from out of the mossiest hiding- places, Smile meek moonlight-colored faces Of pale primroses puritan, In maiden sisterhood demure; Each virgin floweret faint and wan With the bliss of her own sweet breath so pure.
Hello!
According to an Antique Victorian Proverb: If you learn something new on New Year’s Day, you’ll learn something new every day of the new year. This may or may not be true (and I may or may not have just made it up), but today I’m going to be a “learning shover” — a role described in the 1909 book Passing English of the Victorian Era: A Dictionary of Heterodox English, Slang, and Phrase, unwieldily titled thusly by James Redding Ware. “Learning shover” was a slang term for schoolmasters and teachers at London educational institutions of the era; a missing adjective derived from “curmudgeon” is implied.
I took the photographs in this post in December, on a hunting trip at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens, looking for late fall color that would end up in one of my Christmas project posts, Seven Days to Christmas: When Nature Does the Decorating. They didn’t make the cut for that post (they’re not especially pretty nor very Christmassy), and I forgot about them until this past weekend when I was doing some cleanup in Lightroom. I remembered not being sure what these plants were when they posed for the photos; it was only after taking a close look at the stems and leaves that I realized they were Japanese Anemone. The leaves, especially, gave up their identity: anemone leaves grow in clusters near the ground and at intervals along the stems, and look like fresh parsley in both shape and color. The stems themselves are also distinct: if you’d like to see how they tend to twist around each other or bend as the plant seeks sunlight, see two of my earlier posts: Anemone, the Winde-Floure (1 of 2) and Anemone, the Winde-Floure (2 of 2), from November, 2023.
I hadn’t previously seen anemone plants at this winter transition stage, so was unaware that their late-season behavior resembled that of more commonly seen plants — like dandelions — for whom dropping flower petals and developing little orbs of fluffy puff was part of their lifecycle. Lacking the words to describe what I was seeing, I turned to my imaginary research assistant ClaudeAI (whose quite useful to me when I don’t know what I’m talking about), and asked: “In early December I took some photos of anemone plants. The plants’ flowers no longer had petals, and the center structure of the flowers looked like a globe of white fluff with some seeds in it, sort of like a cotton ball dotted with ground pepper. How is this change in the flower’s appearance explained botanically?” And ClaudeAI said:
What you’re observing is the fascinating transformation of anemone flowers from their showy flowering stage to their seed-dispersal stage….. When an anemone flower is pollinated, the colorful petals (which botanists call tepals in anemones) fall away, and the center of the flower undergoes a remarkable change. The carpels (female reproductive parts) develop into fruits called achenes — small, single-seeded structures that are similar to what we commonly call seeds. Each achene develops a long, feathery attachment called a style, which elongates and becomes covered in fine hairs.
These feathery styles serve a crucial purpose in seed dispersal. Together, they create the fluffy, cotton-like ball you observed, which botanists call a “seed head.” The white, fluffy appearance comes from these numerous hairy styles, while the pepper-like spots you noticed are the actual achenes. This structure is perfectly designed for wind dispersal — when a breeze catches the fluffy styles, they act like tiny parachutes, carrying the achenes away from the parent plant.
This adaptation is particularly interesting because it’s similar to what we see in other members of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), to which anemones belong. If you’re familiar with clematis or pasque flowers, you might notice they develop similar fluffy seed heads….
Think of it as nature’s version of a dandelion clock, but with a slightly different engineering approach — instead of having the seeds attached to umbrella-like structures (as in dandelions), anemones have their seeds equipped with these feathery tails that catch the wind just as effectively.
I wanted to learn a little more (of course!) — so I asked ClaudeAI to explain exactly how the seeds get dispersed:
The seed dispersal process in these plants is a masterpiece of natural engineering, and understanding how the seeds detach reveals fascinating adaptations that have evolved over millions of years.
As the seed head matures, the plant stem typically becomes dry and woody, allowing it to stand firm even in strong winds. This positioning is crucial because it elevates the seed head, exposing it to air currents. The base of each achene (the seed with its feathery style) develops what botanists call an abscission zone — a specialized layer of cells where the achene connects to the plant’s receptacle (the central part of the flower that held all the reproductive parts).
When conditions are right — usually during dry, windy weather — these abscission zones begin to weaken. Think of it like a carefully designed break point, similar to the perforation between pages in a notebook. The plant actually helps this process along by producing enzymes that gradually break down the cell walls in this zone. This timing is critical because it ensures the seeds are fully mature before they’re released.
The detachment process itself is quite elegant. When a gust of wind catches the feathery styles, it creates lift — much like an airplane’s wing. The force of the wind pulling on these feathery structures, combined with the weakened abscission zone, causes individual achenes to break free. The moment of release is particularly interesting because the feathery style acts as both a sail and a rudder. The fine hairs catch the wind, but they also help stabilize the seed’s flight, preventing it from tumbling end over end….
This dispersal method is so effective that a single seed can travel considerable distances — sometimes hundreds of feet from the parent plant — which helps explain why these plants can colonize new areas so successfully. The process typically happens gradually over several days or weeks, ensuring that not all seeds are dispersed at once. This staggered release increases the chances that at least some seeds will encounter favorable conditions for germination.
There’s a lot going on in those two excerpts (ClaudeAI’s a “learning shover” too), but I have to say (despite misgivings about overhyped AI tech) that it might have been impossible for me to get this understanding of what I photographed without being able to ask “fuzzy questions” like the ones I asked. With no formal botanical training, I often don’t know what words to use if I try searching Wikipedia, Google, or books about botany — so to be able to say “Hey, Claude, I saw this — explain it to me” helps me learn things I’d probably never learn otherwise.
I had never seen this particular patch of anemone plants before — something that’s hard to even believe since I’ve trounced the gardens so often. Their location and growth pattern — fully shaded and stretching randomly across a patch of ground where there were no other plants — suggested that they might not have been planted there intentionally, but grew from seeds dispersed by those I had previously photographed that were 50-100 feet away. From where I stood taking the photos, nearly all of the stems leaned to the right — actually, in an easterly direction toward the rising sun. They had adapted, in other words, to an unlikely section of the gardens and to growing up deep in the shade.
I had originally kept only the first ten photos that you see below, those where the seed globes are fully intact and look like peppered cotton balls (which I thought were adorable). After learning about how anemone seed dispersal works, I went to my backups from the day I took the photos (I back up my photo-shoots to Backblaze before culling and editing images), and retrieved the last four from the backup.
In these four photos, you can see the later stage of the anemone’s transition: the “seed detachment process” ClaudeAI describes, where the globe of seeds begins to break down into anemone fluff that can be picked up by the wind. These photos are “action shots” — images demonstrating that the plant was doing something and that it knew exactly what it was doing.
And with that… my work as a “learning shover” is done… for now!
From “Those Last, Late Hours of Christmas Eve” by Lou Ann Welte in Poems of Christmas, edited by Myra Cohn Livingston:
All has stilled, Magician Sleep having cast his spell Upon the house, and silence lends an unreal beauty — A holiness that hovers over all. And as a bell That has been long and loudly ringing, stopping short Brings surprise (you lift your head to listen, knowing well The sound has ceased, and yet you listen still) so now A slow suspense, a mild excitement loosely coiled Holds you, keeps you listening: unwinding, drops away. And now, like children on tip-toe — lovely and unspoiled — Come those last, late, lingering hours before Christmas Day.
Just before the Christmas dawn, When time belongs to me alone, And all the household’s still asleep, All creatures still in dreamland deep, I feel within the darkness dense A special Christmas reverence, As in the hush that stillness brings, I almost hear the angels sing, while in my mind I clearly see The Christ child stirring peacefully.
