Tarflower in Florida, US
I’m back again with some ephemeral friends!
One of the prettiest flowers I see in the forest, it’s always an immediate eye catcher. Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis).
Pink Lady’s Slipper (Cypripedium acaule)
These are less ephemeral, but still wonderful!
Hairy Honeysuckle (Lonicera hirsuta). I’ve always found these flowers so interesting! The plant itself is unique from the other local Lonicera in that it is a vine, and climbs trees. Its apical leaf is also different from the lateral leaves. It’s sort of like this big offering dish for the pollinators! You can see a very tall stem in the upper middle of the second picture!
Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) is one of the most common flowers in northern Ontario! It’s everywhere! A couple interesting bits of ecology about Bunchberry are that the white ‘petals’ aren’t actually the flower. They’re modified leaves! The actual flowers are in the center, they’re the little black dots! The other, is that this plant is a dogwood! It’s closely related to Red Osier (Cornus serciea)!
I thought this was going to be easy, because I don’t take great photos.
I’ve been going back through all my observations (especially plants and insects, but not limited to those) and found a LOT of decent flower pics, so thank you for helping me appreciate some of my own contributions more.
In the interest of brevity, though, I’ll post this from this bee fly observation instead of all the ones I rediscovered. Not sure it’s my “best” or favorite, but I like it.
The fly and disc flower heads could be sharper, but I like that you can not only see the texture of the drooping petals, but it’s detailed enough to see that there is a difference in texture between the ventral and dorsal sides.
Crazy! If you don’t look too closely, they could pass for mushrooms! 
They are one of the most unique genus on earth (As far as I’m concerned)!
They have no chlorophyll! This genus (and a few related others) trick the mycelium beneficial to trees into providing free nutrients! They’re parasitic! Technically, it is classified as a ‘myco-heterotroph’!
Such a variety!
