Monday, August 24, 2009

Macro Monday: Old Man's Beard

These are the achenes of our native Clematis vine (C. drummundii) known as Virgin's Bower or Old Man's Beard. The flower is nothing like the garden variety type you may be familiar with. These are beautiful to photograph back lit on a fence but this one was growing in the prairie, photographed in the wind today. It is a host plant for the larvae of Metalmark butterflies (featured last week in my Macro Monday submission).

The species is named for Thomas Drummond, (ca. 1790-1835), naturalist, born in Scotland, around 1790 who came to Texas in 1833 to collect and name many of our plants. Tea made from this plant is used for treating migraine headaches.

For more up close and personal images, visit the folks at Macro Monday!

10 comments:

colleen said...

I love it. It's amazing what is often overlooked as a weed or not pretty enough to take a picture of. I try to find the unusual along with the obvious. Good shot.

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

Oooh! So unusual! You captured it's swirling movement and delicate nature perfectly.

~Lisa

chloe; moresecretwhispers.wordpress.com said...

super pretty! :)

Ed said...

Facinating and beautiful, great shot..:-)

Nivin Kadar said...

Gorgeous! love it! I used run these when I was a kid! Thanks bringing out all those old memories! Actually I'm still a kid! ;)
~WildBlack

threecollie said...

So nice! You do have an eye for these.

gtyyup said...

It's beautiful! Very nicely captured...the wind is always tough for me.

sunnymama said...

Very beautiful and an interesting post!

Nic said...

I do love macro photos, this is really interesting and beautifully shot.

thecrazysheeplady said...

Very nice!

Blog Widget by LinkWithin