The show will be up at the Eye on the Mountain Gallery from April 6th – April 27th
Tulip, Tulipa spp.
Young Tulip (left)
Tulips can be grown from seed or propagated from bulblets that grow off the main bulb. The latter will be clones of the parent plant, so you can be sure what variety you will get.
Triple Tulip (below)
Tulip Flower Cross-section
Tulips are known as “perfect flowers” because they have both male and female reproductive parts. Here you can see the stigma in the center, its surface is sticky to trap pollen grains. Surrounding it are six anthers covered in pollen that is carried to other tulips by small mammal pollinators and wind.
Tulip Anatomy
- Petal/sepal. The three inner ‘petals’ of a tulip’s total of 6 actually are technically petals, while the outer three are secretly modified leaves called sepals that look identical. Since they are busy being part of the flower, tulips don’t have a little green calyx cupping the flower, like many other flowers do.
- Style and Stigma. The sticky stigma rests on top of the style. This platform catches pollen, which grows tubes down the style to fertilize eggs in the ovary at the base, which then develop into seeds.
- Stamen and Anther. Tulips have six stamens each topped with a pollen coated anther that pollinators bump into while they visit the flower. They can cross- or self- pollinate, but interestingly do not produce any nectar, and are pollinated by animals that come to eat the pollen and wind.
- Fruit/Seed pod. Once fertilized, the flower closes up and develops into a fruit.
- Seeds. The seeds within the tulip fruit are thin and round.
- Dried fruit. When the mature seed pod pops open, the rows of light seeds blow away on the wind.
- Bulb. Bulbs are underground stems, protected by layers of leaves that store energy to allow the plant to overwinter and grow again the next year.
Cozy Cuties
In areas of Europe and Asia you can find tiny harvest mice climbing tulip stems to munch on protein rich pollen, or taking a nap inside the flower. They have especially long prehensile tails to help them keep their balance. Pollen stuck to their fur helps to fertilize the flowers.
They are so cute it doesn’t seem real! (Even their scientific name is cute sounding: Micromys minutus.) A little bit of magic in real life.
Felted Friends
My mom Judy made these little sleepy mice from felted wool to accompany my paintings. She also made the felted flowers and plants and sent them to me from New Jersey where she works in a flower shop to share in the gallery. Thank you for these adorable little mice and for making my childhood especially magical!
Making Friends
A tulip fairy is befriending a harvest mouse with a taste of pollen from a stamen. This painting is in the spirit of that little mouse that I found when I was little and didn’t know better than to not pet. Ooops! It was strange and special to meet the tiny creature a secret quiet spot.
Calla Lily, Zantedeschia aethiopica
Calla lilies are a funny one, they are technically misnamed because they are not in the lily family, they are a type of flowering plant called an aroid. Their graceful transition from stem to flower has some unusual anatomy behind it; The ‘flower’ is a modified colored leaf called a spathe that helps to attract pollinators. The yellow spadix in the center is made up of many little flowers.
Calla Lily Cross Section
These paintings are inspired by ceramic sculptures of abstract flowers made Anne Ray. They reminded me of trees with crowns of giant flowers, and I like to imagine forest fairies or elves living in whimsical treehouse built in the tree. My Dad once built us a toy treehouse with platforms like this one, and I was thinking of it when I painted this. It’s really fun to think of clever gadgets they might use in their daily lives.
Here are a few of the ceramic flowers by Anne Ray. She made them by building up the vase shape, expanding it in to a wider top and knocking gently into it to collapse the clay in a unique flower shape. You can see more of her work at https://earthandstone.art/
(left) Magic Treehouse
Sunflower Helianthus spp Cross section
Sunflower heads are made up of many smaller flowers. The little ones in the center are called disk flowers, and each seeming petal around the edge is a also single type of flower called ray flowers. This composite flower shape works well to attract pollinators and gives them a big landing pad. The name Helianthus is also fun, hēlios (Greek) “sun” + Anthos (Greek) “flower.”
Helianthus maximiliani is a species of sunflower that native to north American prairies. You can see it along roadsides all over town. It is an unusual sunflower for having multiple flower heads extending from the central stalk. The sunflowers in my yard last summer were crawling with life, I found this praying mantis hanging out probably hoping to catch a bee and ants going up and down the stem gathering food. The little fairy kids are me and my sister looking up at the towering plant.
(left) Towering Sunflower (below) Maximilian Sunflower
Cherry blossom cross-section
Cherry flowers have five petals that are separated from each other. Wind can blow them loose from the flower to scatter a pretty carpet around the tree. Inside each flower a central stigma emerges from the seed producing ovary, topped with a sticky stigma to catch pollen. Many stamens surround the stigma each with a pollen coated anther on top. Some species of cherry can self-pollinate, but others need cross pollinator to develop viable fruit.
Family Rosaceae
Many of our favorite fruits and nuts come from plants in the rose family. Around town I see a lot of cherry, apricot, plum, and apple trees all with similar flowers that bloom early in the spring. Flowers open before leaves begin to unfold, which helps them stand out to pollinators. The pink blossoms against grey brown branches is striking.
A lot of my inspiration for this collection come from what I loved from my childhood. A sense of magic and peacefulness in a backyard with an amazing garden and treehouse. When I was little that was the world my parents made for me and I lived there with my little sister. Tapping into these memories makes me feel connected and safe. I hope I can share a bit of my vision of the world both as it is and as it can be imagined.