Good Morning

A bumblebee works its way out of a rose turtlehead flower backlit by morning sun. It’s always amusing to see them crawl in and disappear, then poke their head out and emerge from that flower, really resembling a turtlehead so it’s crawling out of its mouth. In this morning light I could watch the bee’s shadow inside.

A friend gave me a rooted piece of this plant from her garden of native plants. It formed a nice round clump of single stems that grows three to four feet tall each year and begins to bloom with pink flowers in spikes at the end of August. Pink in late summer and early autumn is nice. This variety of this plant, Chelone lyonii, is found in a small area in central Appalachia, while other colors of blooms and leaves have a wider distribution all over eastern North America. It also likes wet soil, often growing in wetlands and along streams, and the area of my yard where I planted it tends to be wet and spongy in spring and still damp in midsummer. When deer began to inhabit my backyard wildlife habitat they ate everything but the trees, including all other native plants, but this clump persisted each year with only one or two branches gone, and for a while it was the only thing blooming in the yard. I like the dried seed pods on long stems too. I bring them in for dried arrangements.

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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, visit my galleries of Photography on Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “Custom Prints” for availability and terms. I'll be more than happy to make a print for you.