Botany Photo of the Day

An intimate look at the flower of Siebold's magnolia, also known as Oyama magnolia. Magnolia flowers are thought to closely resemble those of the first flowering plants; a spiral arrangement of floral parts, floral parts that are unfused, and stamens that are not differentiated into anthers and filaments are some of the similarities between magnolia flowers and ancient flowers from the fossil record.

Unlike Arthur Evans and Charles Bellamy, I've an inordinate fondness for pendulous flowers (though beetles are cool!). Flowers that hang down, though, can be the most challenging to photograph, if one's goal is to illustrate some of the floral parts. Magnolia sieboldii isn't so bad - at least some of the flowers hang at eye level or below, and the plant is dense enough that you can photograph into the tree without the sky blowing out.

Styrax japonicus, on the other hand, is difficult. Every year I try and photograph it, every year I'm only mildly pleased at best with the results. The good thing about photography at a botanical garden as opposed to the travelling to photograph is that there's always next year...

As an aside, Botany Photo of the Day and the UBC Botanical Garden Weblog were featured on MetaFilter yesterday via Steven (aka plep). MetaFilter is one of the premier community weblogs in the world, so that was a welcome surprise.