Botany Blueprint is series of plant profiles that look at the form and function of seed pods. Each article begins with a specimen I have collected and photographed.
The series is published at Print magazine. The collection will be edited as a forthcoming book. Limited edition prints are available for purchase or exhibition. | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
 |
"When they tumble into the water from a bowed stem and ripened pod, Nelumbo nucifera seeds collect in what becomes an underwater seed bank." |  |
"You might say there are worse places to be bound, than a sunny spot on leeward Hawai'i, but botanists consider it a problem and a puzzle. The tree is critically endangered, and its seed dispersal strategies are a mystery." | |
| | |
| | |
 |
"She is an exquisite specimen, this dowager of the woods: a morning glory in youth, a rose in death." |  |
"Long and thin, the beans twist and constrict as they mature, weaving themselves into a bundle of extravagant curls." | |
| | |
| | |
 |
"A crimson burst on the grey sky, Tara's seed pods were a coastal trail marker on a stormy day." |  |
"Each mark is the footprint of a seed that has departed to inhabit a new riparian terrain." | |
| | |
| | |
 |
"A fried egg flower with a salt-and-pepper shaker seed pod." |  |
"It's been around long enough to know that there really is no hard knock life in California—as long as you've got the sun, and a few friends." | |
| | |
| | |
 |
"Dangling from the fruit's high branch, the seductive scarlet seed sways in the wind: a persistent advertisement to hungry birds." |  |
"Canna is known as 'Indian shotput;' the perfectly round black seeds are dense, hard, and textured like hammered metal." | |
| | |
| | |
 |
"When the spiraled plume lands, it's poised—literally—to nestle into the earth." |  |
"The inflated papery capsules balloon like iridescent bubbles, but do not mistake them for fragile travelers." | |
| | |
| | |
 |
"The castor bean is not a friendly plant, and its cautionary appearance at least gives fair warning." |  |
"The towering flower head sways on its tall pedestal stalk, and hundreds of winged black seeds tumble into the wind." | |
| | |
| | |
 |
"Remaining on the tree to protect the fruit as it develops, the papery shroud is a dried vestige of the golden blossom – and a nice continuity of form." |  |
"The sharp mouths resemble a chorus from the Greek Underworld, or a brood of infant birds." | |
| | |
| | |
 |
"An explosive split breaks the binds between seed and carrier, sending the seeds soaring at distances of sometimes seventy feet." |  |
"The high thread count is unwoven when the pod bursts open and tufted clouds disperse." | |
| | |
| | |
 |
"The dénoument of the whole choreography is truly an unraveling: the entanglement springs apart, and each of the five spiraling tails propels each of the five seeds." |  |
"If the seeds are eaten, roll towards inhospitable grounds, or otherwise don't germinate, the wild cucumber has an underground contingency solution." | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |