September 28, 2005

Feral flowers. This rare wildflower landscape portfolio represents a 19-year historical documentation of a phenomenon in the Californian deserts known as "carpet blooms". A surreal display of flowers on such a scale and magnitude not seen anywhere else on earth.
posted by HawthorneWingo 19 years ago
  • The slideshow's the easy way to see lots of pretty pictures quickly.
  • It looks like the field in the Wizard of Oz.
  • Doesn't this sort of thing happen in Australia sometimes? I seem to remember some documentary about the "Year of the Green Centre" in the seventies when it actually rained in central Australia and there were suddenly millions of flowers.
  • Amazing pics! And no digital manipulation - just a handy polarizer and a nice camera. Say, is there some connection with these wild poppies and, um, oh never mind...
  • Wish I could see pictures of the current Atacama bloom.
  • When I left L.A., it had chanced to rain, and I was delighted to see the desert in bloom as I drove east. And not only California, but Arizona as well.
  • Upon seeing flowers like these most bees would fall to their knees and give thanks: "Oh, Jeez," they'd sneeze, "If you want to please me, You've scored, bigtime!" Which leaves me to ponder: "Oh, why," I do wonder, "Does our own wacky bee -- our poet laureate, he -- not see that we very much want him to write poetry about carpet blooms?"
  • As if the flowers themselves weren't beautiful enough, knowing that this happens so infrequently makes them so much more breathtaking. Check these sites out for more.
  • Doesn't this sort of thing happen in Australia sometimes? Yeah, it does -- and pelicans find their way hundreds of miles inland to the flooded lakes to breed. Those sea monkey things are out there waiting for rain, too.
  • Here's one, goetter, and here's another (not sure where the "beginning" for the second link is, so just browse using their arrows).
  • I keep reading this as fecal flowers.
  • Nonbinary, that would be the corpse flower.
  • Hawthorne, think my poems tend to focus on a particular instance or thing rather than a slew of 'em. One broken poppy dangling in the wind might bring a greater grief to mind than all the riot of those golden hordes I left behind. Being a small bee, I only know one flower at a time.
  • Thanks, bees.