Closeup views of Ground Dogwood flowers.
Closeup look of Ground Dogwood (Cornus unalaschkensis) flowers.
Closeup look of Ground Dogwood (Cornus unalaschkensis) flowers.
Ground Dogwood Flowers
Closeup look of Ground Dogwood (Cornus unalaschkensis) flowers.
Closeup look of Ground Dogwood (Cornus unalaschkensis) flowers.
Beautiful photo, Matt. I looked this up as I am writing up a MSc thesis on petal micromorphology just now. You may be interested (or already know!) that this not a flower, but an inflorescence, i.e. a group of tiny flowers (purple) surrounded by white bracts looking like petals. Each small purple flower (floret) in fact has 4 of its own true petals. In your photo these have not yet opened up, being still closed in bud – but they are quite clearly small individual flowers when you see them opened out. Hope this is of help!
Thanks Peter – I had learned at some point that the white ‘petals’ were actually bracts, but obviously was not clear about it on this post! I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment with a nice explanation. Do you know much about the pollinating mechanism used by this species? They are basically spring loaded (somewhere I’ve seen a high speed video slow-down of it on-line) and shoot the pollen when disturbed (generally be an insect). I’ve triggered them myself just for fun, a few times. I’m curious about what sort of things turn out to be significant in petal micromorphology – is there a reference somewhere that I could take a look at? Thanks!