Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: coast delphinium

[best appreciated at full size against black] I've been keeping my eyes open for the color purple, because I was on the look out for THIS flower!! On the way down to the mailbox the other day, I spotted a flash of purple in the woods, and took a detour off the road to take a look. YES!!! Our beautiful Larkspur has arrived!! These flowers are so pretty and exotic looking, it amazes me how many kinds of flowers that grow here! Yellow-Tinge Larkspur is also called Low Larkspur or Coast Delphinium, and is just one of over 300 species in the Delphinium genus! I had a very difficult time figuring out exactly which species I photographed but judging by the yellowish petal edges, I think it's Yellow-Tinge Larkspur. If you find yourself trying to identify plants or animals, you'll discover how difficult it can be to differentiate between one or more very similar species! What a headache! :D Yellow-Tinge Larkspur is native to southern Oregon down to San Francisco, California. It's usually seen along the coast, grasslands, and open forest like on our property. Delphinium is a popular garden flower, but did you know that it is extremely poisonous?! It is deadly to livestock and cattle ranchers will avoid moving herds into rangeland that contains Larkspur until late summer after the flowers have died. However, when carefully prepared in small doses, the seeds are used for herbal medicine , In the past, delphinium flowers were also ground up into a dye or ink, but I suspect this was done before it was understood how poisonous this plant is. If you would like to know more about Delphinium flowers, Wiki has a page here: Wiki: Delphinium I've uploaded two other pictures today and I hope you'll visit them too! Thanks to all of you who have visited and have left comments and favorites! I try to go to all of your pages within a day or two and is a highlight for me to see your beautiful photography! :) NOTE! I have finally updated my profile and I hope you'll take a look to find out a little more about me and how important all of you are to my experience here on Flickr! Janet Brien (sfhipchick) This image was taken in April, 2012.

This is from my archives, taken last spring. It's the bud of a Yellow-Tinge Larkspur flower, which was featured as the 38th Flower of Spring & Summer. When I began that project, I only put one view with none in the comments as I do now. So this picture was left behind. I think these buds are amazing to see, and so different! I hope you like it too! :)

This is a whole flower stalk to appreciate, aren't they just stunning?!! Do any of you have trouble photographing flowers like this? They are very difficult for me!! Every time I find a tall stalk of flowers, I am faced with a dilemma: how can I photograph this flower in such a way that I can properly show the lovely sight that I am seeing? The individual blossoms are just beautiful, but there are a whole stalk of them, and seeing all the flowers together is an important part of the overall show. However, taking a picture of the stalk means that the blossoms are too small to appreciate properly! It's also a challenge to get the proper depth of field to show enough of the blossoms clearly and still have a nice, soft background. ACK!! I think that the only way to show these kinds of flowers properly is to have at least two pictures: one of the stalk, and one that shows a close-up of a blossom or two. What do you think?

The day before I left for San Francisco, I was wandering around on our property and was delighted to see that the Yellow-Tinge Larkspur was getting ready to bloom! So, today I went out to see how they were doing and found lots and lots of these beauties growing under the Oak trees in our lower forest. Besides their gorgeous color, I love how happy the blossoms look, as if they want all want to jump on me for a big hug! :) How lucky we are to have such stunning wildflowers on our property!! Bernard C. Meltzer (May 2, 1916 – March 25, 1998) was a United States radio host for several decades. His advice call-in show, "What's Your Problem?," aired from 1967 until the mid-1990s on stations WCAU-AM and WPEN-AM in Philadelphia, WOR-AM and WEVD-AM in New York and in national syndication on NBC Talknet. Wikipedia: Bernard Meltzer