A Few Flowers of Autumn

The change into autumn has begun. Birds are moving south, frost warnings are appearing and the sunrise is progressing to after my normal wake up time.  I visited a state forest yesterday to see a relatively infrequent native plant, the Closed or Bottle Gentian.  There is just a tiny opening in the flower, enough for a small bee to enter.   (I wonder if the small opening preserves the pollen from autumn rains, not that we have had any measurable rain lately.)  So here in its dewy blanket is Gentiana andrewsii:

   Found some pretty white asters, possibly Narrow-leaved White-topped Asters (Seriocarpus linifolius).  Anyway, whatever the current name, I like them.

You can see that they mix in with the gentians.  Another neighbor of the fall blooming gentians are the common Goldenrods.  So many Solidago varieties to choose from.  I really love the colors when they mix with the gentian.

Also found was what I'm calling Autumn Calico.  It's just a colorful mix of leaf colors and asters.

All images were made with mirrorless Canon R6 and Canon 100 mm micro lens at f/8.  Manual focus with focus peaking to create stack of four to seven images.  Combined in PhotoShop.

Paul Schmitt