Bee Guides

So what’s with the fancy froo froo stripes and streaks and eyelashes on this nasturtium flower growing outside the back door?

IMG_3183nasturtium480

What’s up is “it pays to advertise.”

Most of the features we notice and possibly admire as “pretty” in a lady’s slipper or turk’s cap lily are not there for our admiration any more than a robin’s song is to make us cheery on a dreary morning.

They generally have survived as reproducible shapes and colors because they are “bee guides” that lead to an increased chance that the pollen of the species will find its way to the egg of same–typically but not always on a different flower or a different plant some distance away.

Sorry this image lost clarity and sharpness in the translation to web resolution. The MACRO function on Camera + 6 is pretty cool.

I’ll try to post an image a day this week, most of them with that iPhone app or HyperLapse or maybe an iPhone default camera Slo-Mo of leaves falling.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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