UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 2,457
Unexpected Beauty from Compost Pile
I noticed these around my compost pile. They are the husks from the fruits of a Physalis (not sure which sp., [edible]) after a few months of decay. I thought the remaining structure was beautiful. The husks are around 3 cm, these images are higly magnified.
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Eric La Fountaine
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They look so delicate. I like how they've maintained their shape, and I think one of them even has seeds?!
Those are really pretty pictures, especially the first one with all of them together.
UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 2,457
Yes, those are seeds. Some of the husks still had entire shrivelled fruits inside. These fruits are known commonly as ground cherries, husk cherries, Cape gooseberries - sometimes seen in stores as golden berries. The plant is related to tomatillos and the inedible Chinese lantern.
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Eric La Fountaine
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UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 2,457
Re: Unexpected Beauty from Compost Pile
To achieve a solid black background I used a black box to shield out the excess light. I had to do quite a bit of clean up with a graphics program to erase dust.
The image was scanned with an Epson Perfection 1660 PHOTO. I don't know what the depth of image capture is, but I do not really have control of that. It is just the normal capability of the scanner. I would guess it captures images clearly to a depth of 6mm or so.
One thing you do see is that unlike an image from a camera there is no focal point. The optical device scans the image recording pixels as it moves across, thus each point is in focus.
The image was scanned at a high resolution (high ppi). The first image is the original, others are crops from the original.
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Eric La Fountaine
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