Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

A less common (at least around here) spring ephemeral wildflower - Blue Eyed Mary  (Collinsia verna).

Here's another fern fiddlehead from earlier this week - not so tightly wrapped as the last one, starting to unfurl...

Click on the image for a larger file.

Spring ephemeral wildflowers continue to advance.  Today I hunted Prairie Trillium, Trillium recurvatum. I only know one place locally where it grows, though I am sure it can be found in many places locally. The spot I visited is about an hour away so I drove over there today - and there the flowers right where I left them when I last visited in 2007 (click on the images for lager files): 

Yesterday I went to my usual haunts and found a bed of fiddlehead ferns. I have no idea what the the taxonomic designation would be:

And on my way back to the ferns I found some Squirrel Corn, Dicentra canadensis. I seldom see squirrels deep in the forest but if they are there, I suspect they would prefer some old fashioned maize over this:

I have a handful more close-ups to process and post, and later this week (when I can next get away) I hope to make some landscape shots of the spring woods.

This a 110 image stack, made with a Pentax K-3, DFA 50mm f2.8 @4.5, reverse mounted on extension tubes.

Spring has been building momentum as the days get longer and warmer, and with it the succession of spring ephemeral wildflowers continues to unfold. Visiting the woods last Friday revealed several newly emerging species. Spring Beauty and False Rue Anemone are blooming in abundance, literally carpeting the ground in some places. The Trout Lily has commenced blooming and is present in growing numbers, Marsh Marigolds are abundant  and even a few Trillium have begun to flower. Meanwhile the hepatica are growing scarce and the Bloodroot flowers are becoming less common. 

Here's a photo of  Spring Beauty - Claytonia virginica (click on the image for a larger file): 

Hepatica is fading. A few weeks ago it and Harbinger of Spring were the only flowers in the woods. Now, the once abundant Hepatica is almost gone. Here is a white Hepatica bloom:

Trout Lily - Erythronium americanu - is now emerging and will probably peak in the next few days (at least at this particular location.)

 Trout Lilies can be challenging to photograph - the flowers are beautiful but nod down from a fairly short stem, just a few inches above the ground.  To get a clean background behind the flower the camera has be placed very low to the ground - actually aimed slightly upwards to put some distance between the flower and the background (which is inevitably a cluttered forest floor.) I've been keeping tabs on a small hillside that hosts a few Trout Lilies and would also allow the camera to be positioned beneath the flower - lower on the hillside - to help get the right angle. This year I arrived when one of the few Trout Lilies on the hill was blooming.

The lily was in bright and contrasty full sunlight, only slightly shadowed by the bare tree branches overhead. I used a diffuser, propped up by a handy stick to soften the light. Here's a cell phone snap of the setup used to make the above image:

 I drew a red circle around the Trout Lily since it does not stand out in that photo. The camera is a Pentax K-3 with A* 200mm lf4 macro lens. The 200mm telephoto provides ample working room, especially for a larger subject like the Trout Lily.

 False Rue Anemone -  Enemion biternatum - is another newly emerging wildflower. Driving to the woods I passed some areas where this was literally carpeting the ground. A close up of a pair of blooms: 

Here again the full-on sun necessitated using a diffuser.

Another False Rue Anemone:

Marsh Marigolds - Caltha palustris - have also emerged:

Lastly - hiking into the woods I ran into a small area where the Trillium -Trillium Grandiflorum - had started to bloom. It seems early - I think of the Trillium as starting to bloom towards the end of the spring wildflowers season. It seems to be arriving a little early - but then it was on a slight south facing hillside, and we have had a few warm and sunny days - so maybe it is just getting an early start.

 Here again, the diffuser was used to try to tame the direct sunlight - especially important with a bright white flower. In this case there was a small shrub, still leafless, that served as handy support for the diffuser. Here's another cell phone snapshot of the setup used for the photo above:

More spring wildflower photos will be coming in the days ahead.

A few more spring ephemeral wilflowers taken in Cass County, Michigan, earlier this week... First up -  Dutchman's Britches - Dicentra cucullaria (click on the images for larger files):

 Bloodroot seems to be the most fleeting of the spring ephemerals.... Unlike hepatica or spring beauty, which may bloom for a few weeks in any given location  - most bootroots in any given location seem to bloom within a matter of a few days. The flowers last a few days at most and then are gone. If you mis them - well, there's always next year. How many times have I shown up hoping to find these flowers, only to be greeted by their leathery leaves, bereft of blooms. 

 So today I was lucky and stumbled into the woods at a time when the bloodroots were blooming like mad!

 I spent a few hours in the woods, now lush with spring wildflowers (and lots of wild leek) - and I have a bit  of material to comb through. But upon getting home wanted to be sure that I managed at least one passable bloodroot image - and this one seems to fit the bill.

 More bloodroots and other spring ephemerals to follow n the next few days.