Acer pseudoplatanus - hope springs eternal

I was struggling a bit for a blip today as the lighting was very flat as the the coastal haar ad blotted out the sun this afternoon.

I took a quick walk round a family fun day at the local bowls club but was not inspired and felt that it would involve getting parental consent for any photos. I wandered out of the bowls club into to the meadow surrounding where I took my picture of grasses earlier this week. I tried to introduce some sense of depth of field by using differential focus but did not really find any plant/weed that was really so striking it would provide an adequate centre of interest.

Just before I finally gave up I spotted these seeds on a sycamore tree. I like their subtle pinky green colour, their shape and their deeply veined structure. Worth seeing LARGE to view this This type of seed head is called a paired 'samara' and its purpose is obviously to spread the seeds more widely from the tree when they fall in autumn.

I remember when I was first into photography, trying to capture seed heads whirling down in front of a backcloth using a flash. I failed miserably but maybe it is something I should try again now that I am little more proficient in my photography.

Sadly like many sycamore trees the leaves show signs of the 'rhytisma acerinum' virus which leaves black spots. But this did give me angle in focussing on the future growth amid the diseased.