Clintonia Flower And Fruit

Day 305: This post has been three months in the making. Although the photos don't show the exact same plant, they represent the flower and fruit of Clintonia uniflora, known commonly as Bead-lily for reasons which should be obvious. That said, the image on the left shows an aberration: a "uniflora" with two flowers (one in bud), unusual because "uniflora" means "one-flowered." In fact, my botany partner and I found more than one example of double-flowered Clintonia this last spring, all in the same general location. As for that gorgeous blue "bead," the squirrels and chipmunks love them, which has been making them a little more difficult to find than they were a decade ago. From the perspective of one who observes as opposed to one who simply "sees," it's apparent that ranges are shifting, expanding, contracting, moving up or down. You don't have to have a degree in a natural-history field to notice that things are different than they were ten, twenty, thirty years ago. The evidence is right before your eyes.