Day 50

A tiny leaf from a red maple seedling. It was trying to grow among my chard plants. This leaf is a half-inch long, and exquisitely detailed.

Day 49

Here is the bud from a hosta plant, which will bloom any day now. The little leaflets on the bud are arranged in a spiral, like many other things in nature. The spirals in nature are not random... they are based on the Golden Ratio, an irrational number, called Phi, equal to 1.618.... (goes on forever). Divide the 360 degrees of a circle by Phi, and you get an angle of about 222.5 degrees.... this is the exact spacing of these little leaftlets. Also pinecones - pineapples - sunflowers - nautilus shells...

Day 48

Little pollen cones from a pine tree. I was leading a nature walk, and a lot of these were lying on the ground; a kid asked me if they were worms.

Day 47

Tiny little brand new berries from Eastern Red Cedar.

Day 46

The first fruits from my balcony container garden - sugar snap peas. The tops still contain the sepals from the flowers.

Day 45

I wish there was a way to capture the aroma of these honeysuckle. They called me over to just stand and breathe for a while.

Day 44

This might just be the most beautiful little flower I've ever seen. It has 5 petals, although each is divided so that it resembles 10. Each petal has these awesome dark violet veins, and the bright purple pollen just tops it all off. It is only 1/4" across, and growing innocuously in the lawn next to the supermarket parking lot.

Day 43

Such a cute little isopod! I love how intricate his antenna segments are, and the fancy detailing on each of his body segments.