Friday, October 23, 2020,

This is a Goldfinch sitting amongst Canna Lilies and feeding on the seeds of an Evening Primrose. The flowers are gone but, as with almost all flowers, the seeds remain. Their beauty may have faded but not their usefulness. When the petals of a flower fall away, the flower hasn’t died. The fact is that this is the next and perhaps most important stage of that flower.

Flowers are all about pollination. That is their very purpose. They look and smell pretty to attract insects that will bring the pollen of a male plant to the stigma of a female plant. Once the female plant receives the pollen, the process of germination begins to take place. Germination is basically how a plant creates seeds. I’m dumbing it down a bit but only because I’m not terribly smart to begin with. Seriously though, it’s an involved process, but those are the basics.

The result is that after the petals are gone, a flower is not done being a flower. In fact, the reason for there even being a flower is finally coming into fruition. You see, a flower is all about the next generation, and without that flower, there is no next generation. The seeds that are produced by each flower represent the next generation of that particular plant. Those very same seeds also feed a great variety of animals, including this Goldfinch. JK.