Blue Dicks of Spring

Come on blue dicks and come on spring!

Oh, while figuring out that the genus Dichelostemma translates as “a garland which is twice-parted to the middle,” I also discovered that the name was created by the German botanist Karl Sigismund Kunth. He did the botany of all the plants that the explorers Alexander Von Humbolt and Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland brought back from their 1799 to1804 explorations of Central and South America. That’s 3,600 new species! I also learned that when naming species, Kunth paid “special attention to minute analysis of floral structures.” I’ll say.

The photos are from SEINet and taken by Max Licher. A big thank you to him.