Since I became obsessed with taking pictures of flowers, I have seen things I had never noticed before—things that have been right in front of my eyes. I remember as a kid, waving milkweed pods and loved watching the cloud of fluffy silks scatter their seeds. I hadn’t given it any thought but assumed the pods started out as itty-bitty pods and grew to the fat, green sacks I picked. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that milkweeds grow balls of tiny blossoms first.
It reminds me of something Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has Sherlock Holmes say in A Scandal in Bohemia. In response to Dr. Watson’s query about how Holmes can figure out so much more from looking at the same scene, Holmes tells the good doctor “You see, but you do not observe.” Since the pandemic changed my life, I have been taking more time, looking more closely, and observing.
I was delighted when I first spotted the milkweed blossoms. I planned to take pictures of the process and visited the milkweed patch again and again. Before I knew it, there were the big green pods I remembered as a kid. I even searched youtube for time lapsed photography of the process but milkweeds have eluded even them. The best I can do is to show you some photos of how they look at the beginning and the end.
I tried to take pictures of Monarch butterflies sipping their nectar but could only manage a small white moth. I wanted to find a Monarch chrysalis hanging on a milkweed leaf. I searched all over the leaves looking for fat yellow and black striped caterpillars chomping on their milkweed feast. Sadly luck was not with me. If you have any milkweed growing near you and spot a chrysalis or caterpillar, please let me know. I’ll be right over.
The take-away for me is that even though the metamorphosis from blossom to pod seems magical, it’s elementary my dear reader. (Groan ;-)
It reminds me of something Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has Sherlock Holmes say in A Scandal in Bohemia. In response to Dr. Watson’s query about how Holmes can figure out so much more from looking at the same scene, Holmes tells the good doctor “You see, but you do not observe.” Since the pandemic changed my life, I have been taking more time, looking more closely, and observing.
I was delighted when I first spotted the milkweed blossoms. I planned to take pictures of the process and visited the milkweed patch again and again. Before I knew it, there were the big green pods I remembered as a kid. I even searched youtube for time lapsed photography of the process but milkweeds have eluded even them. The best I can do is to show you some photos of how they look at the beginning and the end.
I tried to take pictures of Monarch butterflies sipping their nectar but could only manage a small white moth. I wanted to find a Monarch chrysalis hanging on a milkweed leaf. I searched all over the leaves looking for fat yellow and black striped caterpillars chomping on their milkweed feast. Sadly luck was not with me. If you have any milkweed growing near you and spot a chrysalis or caterpillar, please let me know. I’ll be right over.
The take-away for me is that even though the metamorphosis from blossom to pod seems magical, it’s elementary my dear reader. (Groan ;-)
