Iris at Huckleberry Preserve.

These wound up being tough to photo, hope this one comes through. I promised one a while back, here it is.

Irises have three petals and three sepals that enclose and protect them as they develop in a bud. The sepals have bright marks that direct bees and other pollinators towards the ovaries so they can get nectar, and deposit nectar from other irises. They'll gather more pollen to move about, too. The Ohlone, our local indigenous people use the leaves to make a kind of twine.

I thought we'd be running out of spring wildflowers but Huckleberry Preserve was bursting with them today. We've had a rainy spring and this is a relatively moist park. Sooner or later, I'll have to find something else to blip, but there are a few others I'd like to try before the season ends.