Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Buttercups

Buttercup unfolding its anthers Buttercup with beetles Buttercup ovaries after the petals have gone

I just got a macro lens for my digital camera. Now I can capture the splendor in the grass. Something I've always remembered from plant taxonomy class is that buttercup "petals" have been considered non-homologous with true petals. They have a special name: Honigblatter, or "honey-leaves."

5 comments:

Reya Mellicker said...

They look like honey. Wow, beautiful pics. Everything about these buttercups, even the name, is so tender. thank you!

Rebecca Clayton said...

Buttercups at sunset--what could be more yellow? Thanks for the compliment!

Larry said...

Thanks for the new word: hoenigblatter. Nice buttercup photos!

Larry said...

I did a Google search on the word hoenigblatter and your post was the only result! Do you have any background on that word?

Rebecca Clayton said...

Oops--there's no umlaut. It's Honigblatter. Google finds some German language plant taxonomy concerining the Ranunculaceae, the buttercup family.

A quick look through my plant taxonomy texts didn't turn up the name of the nineteenth century German botanist who coined the term. Some German language googling might find it, but my German is terribly rusty, and nineteenth century plant ontogeny research is probably not well-represented on the Web yet.

Don't you hate it when you know you used to know something, but you don't know where to find the information again?