September 24 - Moonflower

Here's a moonflower from our deck at sunset. These are large, but delicate flowers that bloom very late in the day.

May 14 - Backyard Flowers

From the back yard before it starts raining!

An Iris (warning: this may not look so great on some monitors).


And a blackberry blossom.

May 3 - Woods Prairie

The camera club took a trip this morning to photograph wild flowers. The prairie was windy and cold, but I managed to get a few images I liked.

Wood Betony


Wild Strawberry

August 11 - Murphy's Water Garden

We had a field trip today with the camera club to a nearby (fortunately for me) retail water garden in Clever, MO. Even though it was a warm day with an early start quite a few people attended. I love these flowers - the gentle play of light and color and cycles of life. The first of these images is a lotus and the rest are water lilies. Many thanks to the owners who let us tramp all around their ponds!

June 21 - Backyard Flowers

When the light begins to fade and the wind, gusty through the day, starts to falter, photographers venture tentatively into the field with gleeful anticipation of the magic that awaits. In my case, I got no further than my back porch, where a succulent and a California Poppy caught my attention.

May 19 - Woods Prairie

A group of folks from the camera club met at Woods Prairie this morning (before dawn for some of us) and took a few pictures of the flowers blooming. The morning dew left my feet completely soaked in no time - even with my good hiking boots (maybe I need a new pair). Oh well, what's a few wet feet in pursuit of a nice picture!

Indian Paintbrush


Shooting Star


????


Indian Paintbrush

May 12 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

For the second time in as many weeks, I ended up in Hercules Glades Wilderness Area. This time, however, I was with several members from the Southwest Missouri Camera Club. We had a great time wandering up Long Creek, taking pictures along the way. With the amount of water we've had around our house recently I was surprised to find that the falls were dry. Oh well, some other time. Even though it wasn't a great day for photography, it was still great to be out in the woods again. I did take another picture of a columbine (this is the last one, I swear!).

May 11 - Yellow Cone Flowers

After an impressive late afternoon downpour, I couldn't help but go out and photograph a few cone flowers we have on our deck. In fact, I didn't entirely wait for the rain to stop before I was out there - umbrella attached to tripod - peering into the viewfinder. If you look on the lower left of this flower, you can see a raindrop caught by the camera as it was in the process of dropping to the ground.

May 6 - Hercules Glades Wilderness Area

I dropped by Long Creek this morning to see if any columbines were blooming and was relieved to see that they were plentiful. It was a warm and humid morning. Warm enough to make you wish for that one thing which would make photographing these challenging flowers impossible - a nice breeze.

June 25 - Busiek State Forest

I needed a hike today, so I headed out to Busiek to walk a short loop. There's a nice size hill in the bottom corner of this natural area (I had to huff and puff a bit to get up it today), and I found this cone flower going down the other side.



I've also been working up a few more pictures from my recent trip to Mesa Verda and Canyonlands. This is Cliff Palace from the opposite side of the canyon.


And this is Mesa Arch.

June 14 - Springfield, MO

Not much to post lately, but I did get out this evening for a few flower pictures. This one is a "Cup Plant" (Silphium perfoliatum) also known as "Cup Rosin Weed", or "Carpenter's Weed".

April 16 - Yard Flowers

Both of these flowers were found at ground level in several back yards of places in which I found myself this weekend.

The first, a Grape Hyacinth, is from Springfield. Beautiful little "grapes" on these guys.


And the second, a Bleeding Heart, is from Illinois. I've seen these many times in books, but have never had the chance to photograph them in the wild and was very appreciative of the opportunity to see them today. I love these interesting flowers!

April 8 - McCraw's Ford

The camera club took a trip to a nearby location to snap a few pictures of wildflowers. I didn't have a lot of time to shoot since I had commitments out of town. But here are a few of the pictures...

lots of bluebells!


and a Dogtooth Violet.

April 1 - Busiek State Forest

I went out twice today to take pictures. The first trip was to Mt. Vernon Prairie (unsurprisingly, just North of Mt. Vernon), but didn't find the circumstances very conducive to wildflower photography - just not enough flowers. So, after several hours, I gave up and headed home.

The next stop, later in the afternoon, was to Busiek S.F. It had just rained, so everything was slightly damp (delightfully so).

The dark skys were moving out of the area when I arrived, but there was just enough clouds left aroound to make this sycamore pretty interesting.


It wasn't a very long before I started seeing wildflowers in abundance! Some of my all-time favorites were there including this Purple Trillium.


These next two are of an unknown (to me, anyway - I've tried to ID it from my reference material, but have had no luck so far), but ir ended up being very attractive.




And then there's the gaggle of Dutchmen's Britches. I don't think I've ever seen quite so many flowers bunched together! One of my favorites!

September 10 - Busiek State Forest

Marty from the camera club joined me for a short hike in Busiek State Forest this morning. Busiek isn't a location with a lot of places to view a sunrise, so we just hiked around (just about 5 miles) in search of things to photograph. It was nice to have Marty along, especially since he helped me find my glasses after I lost them in a field of tall grass - thanks Marty!

Horse Nettle. This small flower blooms from May to October, and is very common at ground level.


Gaura (also known as "butterfly flower"). This is a plant that I've been seeing recently and have been meaning to get a picture of it. Its flowers turn pink as they get older.

July 27 - Rose Gentian in Busiek State Forest

Last Wednesday, the weather cooled off a bit and I rushed out to Busiek as quick as I could after work for a short hike.

I've been wanting to photograph a rose gentian for a while and finally got my chance during the hike. I didn't notice at the time that 4 anthers were missing from the top flower. Oh well, these flowers are pretty small, and it was an easy oversight.