Wednesday 26 February 2020

in the wet woodlands, the skeleton flower


I suspect my Blue Himalayan Poppy may be finally going the way of all things that can't out-compete dandelions this year, so I was looking for a suitable weird replacement and came across tales of the Skeleton Flower, aka Diphylleia Grayii an enchanting woodland species (hooray, perfect for my deep shade) that reputedly turns glass-transparent when it rains. Taking this with a bit pinch of internet salt, I went looking for some actual footage rather than the ubiquitous gussied-up insta-glammed flower shots and found this intensely soothing bathe in a Japanese forest:


It is quite a pretty flower, but not a very long walk from a good white geranium, looks-wise. Like many other flowers, the older blooms go transparent when they get wet. The thickness of the petals means this is quite distinctive. A good White King Cup might do something similar, but given I can only find it for sale as seed, chances are you'd actually get a lot of King Cups in the native, cheerful yellow  (which is OK by me). That's a flower that need proper wet feet, and I do wonder if Diphylleia needs the same.

Although if my local area continues its slide into temperate rain forest, both may become a good prospect.

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