American Beauty Berry

These Berries were used by many native american tribes for medicinal purposes making them pragmatic as well as fantastic to look at!

Sea Holly

These striking blue flowers were made even more severe by the bright sunlight at the Getty Botanical Garden.

Cardinal Flower

Cardinal Flower - Lobelia Cardinalis - was introduced to Europe in the mid 1620s, where the name Cardinal flower was in use by 1629, likely due to the similarity of the flower's color to the vesture of Roman Catholic Cardinals

Bird of Paradise

So tropical... so Bird!!!

Dogwood

Beautiful pink edged Dogwood Flowers are a certain sign of spring!

Pink Columbine

This is such a delicate flower! The color just wows me...

Orange Chinese Bell Flower

This Chinese Bell Flower or Chinese Lantern is amazing looking!

Purple Mum

A beautiful purple chrysanthemum from my birthday bouquet!

Echeveria illia

This sweet succulant is so perfectly symetrical. It gives the illusion that it could open forever.

Desert Rose Mallow

Here's another one I thought I could identify right away. I was thinking Rose of Sharon, but it doesn't have the stamen of the Hibiscus family. I'll have to keep an eye out - while I was looking for this one I did identify a previous mystery flower that turned out to be a Prawn Plant - not the Bleeding Heart I thought it was... and the answer is... Desert Rose Mallow!!!

Bottle Brush

When we first moved to Florida there was a Bottle Brush tree on my way to school in the morning - I was fascinated by it! I had never seen anything like it before!

Red Thistle

This was a surprise! Sometimes the camera works magic all by itself!

Purple Star Flower

Thorns surround this purple star flower - be careful! Another mystery flower...

Yellow and Red Pansies

One of the first annuals of the year - I love the velvet texture and color quality of the pansy.

Hibiscus

Hibiscus have such a distinctive silhouette - it was hard to resist capturing this "grey day" photo.

Pink Azaleas

These Pink Azaleas are in full bloom in early February in Florida! There are so many of these right now you almost overlook them. It's great to take a moment to get close and enjoy how beautiful they really are.

California Poppy

It's like the sun is inside the flower!

Blue Columbine

Most "blue flowers" aren't really blue - more violet in hue. This is amazingly blue! I couldn't identify it...I took this in Southern California but I don't know it's name.

My friend Magrid was right on the money - she said this might be columbine and with that information it only took a minute to find it - Columbine-Aquilegia vulgaris!

Sparkler

This dried grass gone to seed catches the light in a magical way - like a sparkler on the Fourth of July!

Peace Lily

This beautiful white flower, not a true lily, conjures up the image of a hooded monk for me. Spathiphyllum means “peace and prosperity” in Latin.

Yellow Tea Rose

There's just something perfectly romantic about a rose! This one was from the Botanical Gardens at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Seed Puffs

Nikki, Mike, Magrid and I saw these when we went to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Elliott's Aster gone to seed. (Symphyotrichum elliottii - thanks Magrid!) I love the way the light plays on the silky puffs.

Amaryllis

How wonderful to find these beautiful Amaryllis blooms today still wet from a light rain!

Prawn Plant

I was sure I knew what this flower was, but when I tried to verify it online I couldn't find a bleeding heart like this - or any other of the several hundred flowers I looked at. This is wreaking havoc on my need for closure...

I found it!!!

Foxglove

Natures Digitalis - I don't know why I remember that. I love these little bells - they remind me of a song we used to sing when I was little.

Tiger Lily

It's so awesome to be able to see the pollen on the stamen of this lily! It feels like Alice falling into the rabbit hole...

Black-Eyed Susan

When I was little every time we saw these by the side of the road my dad had to make some sort of a comment about me and black-eyes. It was right up there with Lazy Susan. I think that's why I insist on Suzy or Suzanne... I guess we all have a cross to bear!

Bees on a Redbud

This blossoming Redbud tree was so full of bees - this appears to have been more of a traffic jam than a romantic encounter!