Future flowers.

The leaves are slowly getting cleared, exposing a plethora of future blips. However, there still is very little that grabs my attention at ground level. Therefore, I'm going to get all botanist and show you the beauty of the "bud." No, not that kind of "bud"!!!

This is a slowly expanding, overwintering inflorescence bud, of Viburnum alnifolium (Hobble Bush). In about a month's time (maybe in time for the end of the April Garden Challenge) this will be a 4"-6" wide inflorescence of sterile and fertile flowers.

If all works out I may have some Scanning Electron Microscopy images to blip in the near future. This will provide some insight into the microscopic world of Botany that hides amongst these colourless, furry bud scales.