flowers: Nature's gift to the senses, or alien life forms sent to subjugate the earth

Close-up of Ocotillo blossoms.

Another beautiful but hot day, it's again in the low 90s which is enough to make me long for a cooler climate. I spent the day packing up, hitching up, and getting ready to ease on down the road early tomorrow morning. I want to leave as early as possible because it's supposed to get real windy during the day so I want to get off the road as quickly as possible. I may only go as far as the Walmart parking lot in Socorro New Mexico, which is about an hour away, it just depends on which way the wind is blowing.

                                          theboondork

These inch and a half wide blue wild flowers are my favorites around here. There's a lot of them around in various stages of development so I thought I would show what this thing goes through to become a flower.

The bud splits open and starts Looking very strange with tentacles coming out the top.

The tentacles get longer and longer and the green things start looking like teeth that are going to eat anything the tentacles catch. I stay away from the plant during this stage.

Just when you think the bud can't get any weirder the tentacles roll up and end up looking like a woman with her hair full of curlers. That's freaky.

Then the remaining inner tentacles shrink up and become the flower's center. The whole thing looks like an alien life form that came to take over the earth. But since the whole plant is only about 4 inches high that doesn't seem too likely, but I'm not taking any chances so I'm leaving tomorrow.