Wildflowers.. one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of nature photography. These photographs were taken across the United States. It might have been my car you saw parked alongside the highway with me crouching in the grass - camera in hand. It has become the way that my wife and I travel and we have found it challenging to recognize a new flower travelling at 60 mph. In the back seat, is a crate of flower identification books that, somehow, never include the flower we have found. Actually, it is this area of nature photography that helped with the name for this site. Most of us never see a perfect specimen of a flower that is used in the field identification guides. So the ones you see here are the ones that are more typical of the flowers you see on your walk.. you know, the ones that are almost really good.
"Trees" by Joyce Kilmer is one of the most celebrated poems for its graphic representation of nature.
"I think that I shall never see,
a poem as lovely as a tree.."
In stark contrast is the response of one individual that I was showing some of the photographs I have taken of flowers. One photograph was of a dandelion. The response...
"Wildflower????... that's a WEED!!"
Yes, indeed wildflowers are weeds. Let us not forget that the many varieties of flowers that grow in your flower beds are WEEDS that have been hybridized, sterilized, grafted, domesticated, homogenized, pasteurized and tamed. Weeds that man has "improved" for his enjoyment. To emphasize man's need to control nature, just listen to how someone growls about how hard it is to control the spread of the mint plant in the flower bed. To man's displeasure, they go where they will.
As for me, let me be a wild flower.............
Enough of this one man philosophy. That is not why you are here. I've chosen to separate the flower groupings in the same manner as many identification guides.
It is at this point that I need to issue a disclaimer. Some of the flowers are "Tentatively Identified". I am not a horticulturist nor a botanist. Use these identifications at your own risk. If anyone finds an error in the identification or can identify one that is not presently named, please contact me.
