Chimaerical Seed Pods Poem by Denis Mair

(for an image posted by James Koehnline on Jan.18)
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For me this image expresses how some plants develop the supporting parts of a flower into a niche-like housing that serves to highlight the seeds and seed case. The sepal bract and surrounding base of leaves may turn into a succulent mount, like a pedestal. As if Mother Nature chooses this manner of presentation to convey value. In some plants the supporting parts of the flower swell up, get juicy, and fuse into the fruit--- as in an apple. In other plants the calyx develops into a compartmented pod. In a lotus the calyx keeps its original shape, enlarged until it looks like a display case. No wonder people think there are flower fairies. The processes of fructification and pod formation can choose different avenues: for some plants it's centered around the pistil, for some the calyx. In some plants there's a major swelling and wrapping around of the sepals. When a chimerical flower image plays with this theme, it makes me think that we can imagine things through Mother's Nature's eyes. We can think of her riffling through her deck of possibilities, to endow each kind of flower with a particular identity, a seemingly fanciful package of features. There are even fruits in which texture is tweaked for special effects, for instance a pear with its specialized cells for slight grittiness. The suite of identifying features in a given type of seed pod is similarly rich. Considering the potential for variety, it seems we are being served with a feast of visual effects.