Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: sticky

Be Still My Beating Heart: Tarweed with Unfurling…

08 Aug 2013 18 17 1151
These flowers are so amazing to me, the petals unroll from the center and every one is different and beautiful to behold. Incredible.

The Lovely Curled Petal Edges of a Tarweed Blossom

08 Aug 2013 9 3 680
Focusing on a few petal edges shows you how detailed and lovely they are! I added some texture to the background to give this image a bit of flair!

Breathtaking Tarweed Pistils

08 Aug 2013 16 7 749
How amazing they are, in yellow and black. They look a bit like fuzzy toothpicks! :) I added texture to the background and some vignetting. The result to me looks like a painting! :)

Why the Black Widow Spider is in the Comb-footed F…

07 Aug 2012 919
This is a close-up of a back leg of a Black widow spider. As you can see, it's covered with little bristles. These are used for combing large swaths of silk from their spinnerets and tossing it quickly over a victim to ensnare it. They also use these combs in the building of their webs. There are over 2000 species in the Comb-Footed spider family (Theridiidae), found world-wide. Most are fairly harmless, with exception of the Widow spiders, some of which are among the most venomous in the world. These spiders are also known as cobweb or tangleweb spiders because they create dense webs of disorganized, sticky threads to capture their victims. These webs are enlarged over time and a single touch will alert the lurking spider. Did you know that spiders have up to four types of silk? They can place these strands at will depending on what is needed at the moment! Each type of silk comes out of its own spinnerets, and the link here will show you a magnified image of a spider's spnnerets with silk strands being pulled out! If you would like to know more about Comb-Footed spiders, Wiki has a nice page here: Wiki: Theridiidae . For more information about spider silk, this is a wonderful source! Spider Silk

Slender Tarweed: The 115th Flower of Spring and Su…

17 Aug 2012 372
PEEE-YEWWW, the nickname for these flowers is Stink Weed! One whiff and you will come up with the name by yourself, "WHAT IS THAT SMELL!!! IT STINKS!" I guess "Tarweed" is a kinder name, but it's descriptive. The problem with all the species in this genus is that they are covered with sticky resin and if you walk past a plant, you'll know the second you walk into your house when the smell hits you! I avoid taking our dogs out into the meadow when Tarweed is growing because the house smells for hours after we get home! *wrinkles nose* Clothes with any resin on them must be washed right away and if you get it on your skin, you'll need alcohol to break down the resin! ACK! It's no fun to walk through this stuff! That being said, Tarweed has beautiful flowers and we have at least four different species on our property! :) Just be glad these two pictures aren't "Scratch & Sniff" images! You wouldn't be able to resist finding out what they smell like, and then you'd be really sorry! :D Slender Tarweed is part of a genus of flowers which includes 11 species, all of which grow in the western regions of North America. Wiki lists them as "aeromatic herbs" which is a very polite way of saying STINK WEEDS! :D This plant is hated by ranchers because the resin will coat the legs and muzzles of livestock and is very difficult to remove. Native Americans collected these plants' plentiful seeds, which they ground up and mixed into an important cornflour-based food called pinole. If you would like to know more about this flower, I found a nice page here: Tarweel Here's another page: Tarweed PDF Wiki has a minimal source here: Wiki: Tarweed (Madia) Explored on August 16, 2011. Placement at #55.