About a million years ago, I studied for a Royal Horticultural Society qualification in general plant and vegetable knowledge. I sat the exam, passed it, then promptly forgot the majority of what I’d learned.
That said, my enthusiasm for plants continues and this enthusiasm frequently takes the form of photographs, in which I seek to record all the strangeness and beauty going on under our noses.
I fear horticultural photography is a lot like the photographs people take of their own children – a source of endless fascination and gratification for the photographer, but much less interesting for everyone else! As I intend to feature plant photography here at Red’s Kingdom as a matter of routine, I apologise now to all those casual by-standers who couldn’t give a flying fig for photographs of figs, but, guys, before you zone out, just take a look at this improbably bewhiskered fern!
At time of writing, this Dryopteris wallichiana is unfurling its blackly hairy crosiers with near-unseemly haste. I sat this morning with my coffee watching it wave them at me like the twitchy antennae of an enormous moth. More accurately, the fern resembles a very large green tarantula engaged in the inelegant business of pulling the remainder of its fat black body out of the earth – or they’re snoozy caterpillars, the kind that would bring you out in a nasty rash if you were foolish enough to pick one up. These hirsute crosiers fill me with a delightful shudder of horror and incredulity. Surely they are part-vegetable and part-animal? When people who loathe their own pubic hair have nightmares, I suspect they’re dreaming of these rudely furry fronds in all their ticklish luxury…
I suppose this is why I’ll always disagree with the flower photography naysayers: I’m never just photographing a flower or similar in the hope of keeping prettiness or breaking the greetings card market. What I’m really doing is what I’m always doing – looking for routes out of the everyday in preference for sights more strange and otherworldly.
Red's Kingdom 
What amazing looking things they are; strange and beautiful indeed! Enjoyed the words and images in this post very much š
LikeLike