Dinesh's photos with the keyword: THE REASON FOR FLOWERS

.................. but I love flowers for their treachery their fragile bodies grace my imagination’s avenues without their presence my mind would be an unmarked grave. ~ Etel Adnan

Such is the ultimate and cryptic truth of every kind of organisms, large and small, every bug and weed. The flower in the crannied wall – it is a miracle. If not in the way Tennyson, the Victorian romantic bespoke the portent of full knowledge (by which “I should know what God and man is”), then certainly a consequence of all we understand from modern biology. Every kind of organism has reached this moment in time by threading one needle after another, throwing up brilliant artifices to survive and reproduce against nearly impossible odds. ~ Page 491 From "The Diversity of Life" E. O. Wilson : author

A tree's leaves may be ever so good, So may its bark, so may its wood; But unless you put the right thing to its root It never will show much flower or fruit. But I may be one who does not care Ever to have tree bloom or bear. Leaves for smooth and bark for rough, Leaves and bark may be tree enough. Some giant trees have bloom so small They might as well have none at all. Late in life I have come on fern. Now lichens are due to have their turn. I bade men tell me which in brief, Which is fairer, flower or leaf. They did not have the wit to say, Leaves by night and flowers by day. Leaves and bar, leaves and bark, To lean against and hear in the dark. Petals I may have once pursued. Leaves are all my darker mood. Robert Frost

But this is yellow!!

Many hummingbirds spend the winter in Central America or Mexico, and migrate north to their breeding grounds in the southern United States as early as February, and to areas further north later in the spring. Hummingbirds fly by day when nectar sources such as flowers are more abundant. Flying low allows the birds to see, and stop at, food supplies along the way. They are also experts at using tail winds to help reach their destination faster and by consuming less energy and body fat. Research indicates a hummingbird can travel as much as 23 miles in one day. During migration, a hummingbird's heart beats up to 1,260 times a minute, and its wings flap 15 to 80 times a second. To support this high energy level, a hummingbird will typically gain 25-40% of their body weight before they start migration in order to make the long trek over land, and water. The first arrivals in spring are usually males. Some, however, do not migrate, in areas like California and the upper Pacific coast, the southern parts of the Gulf of Mexico states, and some along the southern Atlantic Ocean area

My camera is not good enough to catch his wing beats, ...... Their wings beat over a short arc of about 90 degrees, but ridiculously fast, at around 230 beats per second. Fruit flies, in comparison, are 80 times smaller than honeybees, but flap their wings only 200 times a second. Honeybees' peculiar strategy may have to do with the design of their flight muscles Source of info is internet. . . . The salt-grain size neuropile (brain) of the familiar western honey bee, Apis, mellifera,' houses 960,000 neurons and a staggering number -- 10 to the power of 9 -- of neural synapses. we, the brainy, naked apes, have 85 billion neurons to our credit, with synapses totaling 10 to the power of 25. sound like a lot, but remember that they are houses within a brain that is 1.2 million times larger than that of our flower-visiting honey bee. ~ Page 23 (Excerpt : THE REASON OF FLOWERS"

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. – Oscar Wilde