Yes, indeedy, we’re going with another mystery flower this soon. It’s because the bloody birds aren’t cooperating, the arthropods aren’t out in force yet, and I’m too busy with a dozen other projects to go back through old photos at the moment. You’ll love these beauties, though, I promise.
I have no idea if they’re natives or if they’re something S rescued from a garden and brought home, but they are definitely making the area around our concrete retaining wall more interesting.
It’s not often I run across flowers with nearly-clear petals. These barely even seem to be living things: they rather look like unfinished plastic flowers, waiting to be painted brilliant colors.
But they are indubitably living plants. They’re so transparent that I didn’t realize at first they’re a trio, not a duo. Here you can see the entire bunch:
That sword fern seems to like them very much. It adds a sweet bit of extra green. As far as I can tell, this plant hasn’t got much in the way of leaves yet, but I do love its vivid green stems.
So, my darlings, who among you knows what we’ve got here?
There’s actually four in that last photo.
The translucency is due to the half-ripened state of the greenish fruit in the center, which means the flower is half-wilted and loses its colour, leaving the petals translucent and extra-fragile.
Going through wildflowers, so far, no real luck. The spring beauty was a candidate, as were several anemone variants, but for various reasons, I don’t think these are your beaut. The mayapple would be a possibility, if it weren’t for the pretty much complete lack of leaves on your specimen.
So, I am still looking. :) But I’m starting to think it’s a garden escapee / rescuee.
Incidentally, the mayapple is pretty awesome!
I’m going to go with hellebore far enough past its peak that it’s lost many of its distinctive features. We’re at the right time for blooming, and the stalks and flowers are the right shape.
This makes a lot more sense than anything I could come up with.
(Oddly enough, there’s not a lot of photos of half-wilted flowers online, nor any pointers on how to identify the half-wilted ones. :D)
I’ve no idea what they are, but they are lovely flowers! Like fairies should be making dresses out of them or something.
Yes, definitely a hellebore.
I know. I spent a bunch of time asking myself, “So, what would it look like if this were beaten away by the wind and the rain?” You’d think it would be helpful in identification guides at least to see buds and blown blooms.
My first thought was a white lenten rose (hellebore), too. They are definitely out in the NW right now. Such a lovely flower!
Or half-ripe fruit. No intermediates (haha!!) to be found.