Sunday, September 30, 2018

The small fading beauties

Our time in Scotland is racing by it seems. We have done much walking, wandering and working and soon we head off for a week long course.

As we all each day I am captured by the small beauties - the seed pods and the flower heads going to seed. I think I love their muted tones as well as their elegant forms and sense of resilience.

This among all is my favourite. For a southern hemisphere person it is not known, and seems fabulous to me.  Called bog cotton here, it appears in the peat bogs around and not every year, and not always in great numbers, but this year was a good year up our way apparently.  There is patch at the cove at the end of our road and each morning I go to check on it and watch it change.  It was badly pelted with rain for a few days and then the wind so has become somewhat bedraggled; but nonetheless resilient!

If I had time and time again, I would investigate how to make paper from it, but that is not something that will be happening anytime soon. Still each day I visit and enjoy it. It is tiny - the stalks are about 12cm high and the cotton itself about 3cm long.


From here on in I know no names. Again, if I had time and time again I would discover what they are called, but for now I simply admire their beauty and record it. Most of them are small and the photos don't honour them on the bigger screen as best they might.



Silhouetted agains the sky,

 
And then nestled against the stone wall


A thistle with some fluff remaining!


And a bunch of thistles farewelling their fluff


This one feels like a basket to enclose or enfold something


And this tiny one is like a mini pine cone - it is about 2cm tall.


It is a real joy and delight to wander and see such tiny magnificence.

6 comments:

  1. love seeing the wild details of this very different landscape!

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    1. Thanks Mo, the landscape an appear barren and empty, but there is so much going on in the small spaces...go well.

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  2. Where we are 'silhouetted against the sky' is called cow parsley. Don't know if that's the same in Scotland

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    1. Thanks Jac, that rings a bell! I looked at a Scottish wildflower book the other day but it only shows them in flower/colour not as brown faded wee things...but still it might help with shapes etc. go well.

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  3. Mother nature’s beauty Fi. Quietly and gently Awesome,

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    1. So true G, sitting quietly biding its time letting us in now and again for moments of loveliness...x

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