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The detail of plant structure has always fascinated me. When you think of the different forms of flowers and plants it’s mind-boggling. Just in the plants you might see in the UK (never mind all those in countries over the rest of the world) there’s an amazing variety, especially in our gardens.
In my own garden, I can, for instance, see the flower of a daisy near a passionflower. Or a rose and the lavender growing by it – such a range of shapes, textures and colours. These differences make for a more appealing garden and they make photography more interesting too.
The individual details of flowers entice me to capture them in a photograph. Here, with these zinnias, it’s the tiny yellow ‘disc florets’ that have opened in a ring around the flower centre (the ‘eye’). If you look at the photo below, you can see, tucked deep among the curving red bracts (‘paleae’ or chaff) there are more yellow disc florets waiting their turn to open. Each red palea is like a tiny flag, with a fine tip and a jagged-looking edge. They add an attractive texture and contrast to the other parts of the flower head.
As the zinnia matures, the shape of the centre of the flower head becomes more conical due to the growing seeds within. (As you can see in the top image.) The ring of open disc florets advances towards the tip of the cone as the older disc florets finish and the new ones open. This gives a different look from the flatter head of the immature zinnia and new photographic possibilities.
The photograph below shows a variation I hadn’t expected. This flower head has developed fasciation due to abnormal behaviour of the growing tip (perhaps because of damage, disease, genetics or environmental factors). As a result, there are two conjoined flower heads instead of the normal single. It just shows that you never know what you’ll find when you take a wander around a garden!
Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature 
Fascination for fasciation! Excellent example 😀
Double trouble? Hehe.
Great post, Ann!
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Thanks Liz! Double trouble indeed! 🙂 I think it may be the first time I’ve seen fasciation here – can’t remember any before. (Although I’ve seen some interesting examples elsewhere.) It certainly is both weird and intriguing.
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Stunning macros of these gorgeous zinnia flowers, Ann!!
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Thanks Indira! These photos are from a couple of years ago. I didn’t grow any annuals this year, so I must make an effort to grow some next year.
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I always enjoy finding examples of fasciation. They’re not common, but they show up often enough to keep me looking. Did this flower have the flattened stem that sometimes goes along with fasciation? It can take so many forms. Sometimes I get fooled and think I’m seeing fasciation when I’ve come across a different sort of variation, like ‘twinned’ flowers or extra petals. They’re all fun!
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I can’t remember the stem now because I took these photos a couple of years ago. (Not much happening to photograph in my garden after all the heat and drought!) I don’t think the stem was flattened though. I wonder if the different causes determine whether or not there will be a flattened stem? This was one of the better articles I’ve found on fasciation: https://mastergardener.extension.wisc.edu/files/2015/12/fasciation.pdf
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I’ve seen instances of flattening without doubling and doubling without flattening. What the minimum requirements are for a plant to be considered fasciated eludes me.
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I don’t know either, Steve. There wasn’t a lot of detail in any of the information I could find and there seemed to be some disagreement between the things I did find!
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Zinnias are so lovely, but so difficult to grow. I tried from seed last year and was successful to get some to germinate, but the S&S love them so I kept them in a pot on a chair so off the ground! Didn’t bother this year, too much fuss, but I like to photograph them if I see them.
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I’m hoping that we’ll have fewer S&S after this year’s heat and drought – they do cause havoc with a lot of seedlings – so disappointing when that happens. We had a very welcome family of thrushes here this year. I hope they’re back next year. 🙂
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Thrushes are absent from my garden, I think I have seen one since I moved here. If only the other garden birds would eat the slugs!
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Oh yes, I wish the other birds would eat the slugs! I’d occasionally hears the tap, tap, tapping of a thrush with a snail but not seen it until they appeared this year. The pond had brought the birds in for drinks and baths…such fun to watch!
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I have a dip in the large flat rock which I keep topped up with water, the birds use it to bathe and drink from.
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It feels like we can see evolution happening before our eyes.
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An interesting thought! We can see landscapes and gardens change…maybe there are changes happening in both the plants and the wildlife too.
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The wonders that evolution has created are lovely to study and appreciate. It’s taken millenia for the various forms to develop and all Nature’s hard “work” offers us delights. Fasciation is always a grand surprise.
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You’ll not be surprised when I tell you that I absolutely agree, Steve! 🙂
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I never learned anything like this in biology lessons in school. Bees and pollination was about as far as it got. Fasciation is a new un with me.
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Me neither Jill – but I spend a lot of time with Google, trying to learn a little as I go along… 🙂 Sometimes I wish I’d studied botany but you can’t turn the clock back!
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True, like me not just with botany, but zoology, geology, journalism…
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Good choices!
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The disc florets in your photographs call to mind the nursery rhyme “Ring around the rosie,” except that you’ve featured a zinnia.
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I’d forgotten all about that until you mentioned it – brought me right back to primary school memories!
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Thank you, Ann, this was so instructive, and the details so wonderful to see. I also admire flowers, but don’t know their anatomical details as well as you do.
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Thank you Tanja! I’m glad you found it interesting. I’m learning much of this as I go along – I think maybe I should have studied botany when I was younger!
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Our interests definitely change as we age, Ann. I have often wished I had known myself better when I was younger and would have pointed myself in another direction.
But that’s hindsight, and we made the decisions we thought were right at that time.
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Too true – and as we get older, we’re less likely to be swayed by those who insist that they know better, heh!
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