Lunaria annua

click photo to enlarge
I've never posted a photograph of honesty before, though I have posted one of "honestly"! That's rather surprising because dried flowers feature in our interior decor, down the years we've often grown and displayed honesty, and the seed pods of this fairly nondescript plant are unusual and make an interesting photographic subject.

Honesty is commonly seen in gardens and is also a frequently seen escapee in hedgerows, verges and wasteland. The Latin name, Lunaria annua, derives from the moon-like shape and colour of its silvery-white seed pods, particularly when the outer layer has been stripped to show them in their fragile, shiny beauty. Not all countries associate the plant with the moon however. In the United States they are sometimes called "silver dollars" or Chinese money, whilst in France it is "the pope's money" and in Dutch speaking areas "coins of Judas".

I took a straightforward photograph of the seed heads and stems in the blue and white ware vase that my wife had chosen for the arrangement. But, I thought I'd try a determinedly asymmetrical composition showing only part of the vase and seed pods too.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon 5D Mk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 84mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 0.4 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Love-in-a-Mist or Devil-in-the-Bush

click photo to enlarge
Can there be a garden plant with more contradictory common names than the annual flower, Nigella damascena? Love-in-a-Mist is delightfully evocative of the way the light, feathery foliage surrounds the modest but beautiful flowers. However, Devil-in-the-Bush paints quite a different picture and must surely refer to the seed pods, each wrapped in a net-like basket with multiple prongs, like a shroud of barbed wire. Other vernacular names are similarly inventive. Jack-in-Prison probably derives from theed pod and its surrounding entanglement. Love-Entangle may also be similarly inspired, though perhaps the "love" is the flower in the mass of lacy leaves. Hair-of-Venus must be based on the leaves too. A legend attaches to one of the names - Lady-in-the-Shade. The story goes that the Frederick I (1122-1190), Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, drowned when trying to catch an enticing, green-haired water sprite. Lady-in-the-Shade immediately sprang up by the water's edge, a reminder of the tresses of the temptress. As is often the case, the Latin name of the plant is simply descriptive. Nigella refers to the small, black seeds to be found in the pod, and damascena comes from Damascus.

In my macro photograph of the seed pod that I plucked from the garden I definitely set out to illustrate the Devil-in-the-Bush and Jack-in-Prison names. Concentrating on the base from where the "prison" originates I photographed it against a black background in highly directional light and converted the image to black and white.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On