New Zealand Willowherb and the Den Rose

Thoroughly enjoying the silky seed-on-the-wind carriers of New Zealand Willowherb. To give you a sense of scale with these macro pictures, the fully opened flower measures about 7mm across, the unburst seed pod is 40-45mm in length, and the largest leaves about 8mm in length. Think tiny but delightful!

New Zealand Willowherb (Epilobium brunnescens) growing on a vertical mossy surface

Burst New Zealand Willowherb seed pods

Showing two just-about-to-burst pods on the right, flowers on the left,
and the "whee!" wild abandon of a burst pod.
I love the fluidity of it.

After wearing myself out scything long grass yesterday, I asked Toadlet to rake up the grasses into a big pile as I find the raking quite hard physical work and she had hardly emerged from her room all day. She went and did the needful and came back in saying: "I don't call that hard physical exercise!" Ha! She obviously needs to do more!

This morning I enjoyed the Den Rose which is coming into its own while the woodshed rose is finishing its main flowering. You really see so much more with a macro lens, though sometimes getting a deep enough field of vision still defeats me. I was reading about layering several shots today but decided it was too complicated. There's plenty to enjoy with imperfection – my dad used to say if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. ;-)

An early flower

Pink splashes on white

Bright yellow stamens and paler stigmas

This is my favourite

Lots of buds still to open

A later addition:

No, *this* one is my favourite!