Echeveria

I bought a beautiful Echeveria 'Black Prince' from Cotswold Garden Flowers last year, but I put it outside for some fresh air this summer and forgot to bring it in again when the monsoon season arrived in Worcestershire - so I only had myself to blame that it rotted off and died. When I went to replace it they only had one good-sized specimen in the greenhouse, and that was slightly battered, possibly from rough handling when it was last transplanted. I bought it anyway, and it has been sitting in the dry on the dining room table for the past couple of months.

When I first noticed that it was flowering I thought the flowers were pretty underwhelming - but one of the pleasures of becoming interested in macro work has been the realisation that most things in the natural world are interesting if you look at them closely enough, so out came the extension tubes. The flowers on this spike are about 8mm long. The image is a four-layer focus stack.

Many thanks to BikerBear for the Flower Friday challenge. The other entries this week are here.

On another day of uncertainty here in Blipland, I have found this blog post by Fergus Murray very informative and useful. I've also just seen this blip by acronymphomania, which I found interesting and rather inspiring. I wish the Gang of Four well in their attempt to save this virtual edifice, which means so much to so many people.