Signs of Summer

Summer is now fully underway in the lowlands - most obviously atmospherically, as I write this on a quite warm day, but also botanically. The summer flowers are out, and the plants that bloomed in spring are fruiting. I went to Magnuson Park recently to have some fun with this.

We'll start things off with one of the more obvious harbingers of summer: ripe berries. The image below is of a thimbleberry. F/6.3 to get a little bit more of the berry in focus.

Below are reddening rose hips that belong, I believe, to a Nootka rose bush. F/4. I think the rose hips will turn redder as the season progresses.

Next is a chicory flower just opening. F/4.2. Chicory flowers are fun to observe early in the morning, because they close up at night and open up as the sun rises. Although an introduced weed, chicory is very pretty and I enjoy photographing it when I find it in city parks.

Below is a flower in the pea family that I've had a hard time identifying. It might be Bird's foot treefoil (Lotus corniculatus), an introduced species. F/6.3 to get more of an area in focus; I was so close to the flowers that far background detail wasn't really an issue at all.

Finally, the flower below is yellow parentucellia, yet another introduced species, which grows in the grassy meadows in the park. F/4.2.